Sacred Space: Encountering Jesus
Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter April 14, 2024
We are invited, today, into a very sacred space in time and in history. Today we are in the room where the remaining eleven disciples have gathered and locked themselves-in out of fear and doubt. And, it is in this space that we witness the disciples’ encounter with the risen Jesus.
It is sacred space because it is not only the place where Jesus reveals Himself in flesh and bones but more importantly, He reveals Himself as the Messiah of Whom God promised His people from the beginning of time. He reveals that God’s kingdom has been made manifest here on earth and is alive and well. The Scriptures and their hopes have been fulfilled.
Just to refresh our memories on what has happened up to this point in time in history as revealed in the Gospels: The disciples have reclined at table with Jesus to feast on bread and wine in which Jesus initiates the New Covenant.
The disciples have professed their love and loyalty to Him; that when Jesus tells them that one of them will betray Him, they respond, “Surely it is not I.” Yet, before the meal is finished, one of them slips out into the night to retrieve the army to carry Jesus off to His death. And, in the fright of that night, before the morning dawns and cock crows, every last one of Jesus’ followers deserts Him.
The religious authorities are committed to putting an end to this new prophet Jesus of Nazareth because His teachings were threatening the establishment. They order His execution by the most inhuman method conceived by the human mind, crucifixion. But, the death of the prophet Jesus was not enough, the religious leaders wanted to be sure the Jesus movement was completely terminated so they persisted in the hunt for any of His remaining followers.
Now, the disciples have gathered and are hiding out behind locked doors alone with their fears and their doubts and their failures.
Fear that they would be next to be taken and killed.
Doubts that the man they had dedicated their lives to over the past three years was not the savior in whom they had hoped.
And, failures of how their words of love and allegiance had all too quickly turned to denial and abandonment.
And if life could not possibly get any more complex and confusing for them, Jesus’ body was now missing. Even though the women of the group informed them that Jesus had risen from the dead and that they had actually talked with Him, the disciples dismiss this information as nonsense.
This is the energy that fills the room where the remaining eleven disciples find themselves on this day that we read about in the Gospel reading for today.
It is in this space and in this state of emotional disorder that Jesus, the risen Christ, enters-in with, “Peace be with you.” Oh, the familiar voice speaks – speaks into the ears of their minds, into their hearts, “Shalom!”
“Peace be with you.” Was and remains a common greeting in the Holy Land but on this particular day Jesus was expressing much more than a greeting, He was also professing that the reign of God’s kingdom was and still is alive and well. Not only was He the Messiah that they had hoped for and believed Him to be but now death had been defeated for all time.
Jesus comes to meet the disciples where they are: not just in the locked room but in the midst of their state of fear and confusion. He does not render judgement on them because they betrayed Him for, He knew them better than they knew themselves and loved them just the same.
He does not render judgement for their failure to remember and believe the words He spoke to them before He died.
Instead, Jesus in His loving kindness reminds them, “These are My words that I spoke to you of how everything written about Me in the law of Moses and the prophets would be fulfilled. And here I am, in flesh and bones to reassure you that your lives were not a loss when you chose to follow Me. Your doubts will be transformed into wonder of a life beyond your imagination and the joy that I am with you always until the end of time.”
And as we sit in on this sacred space in the reunion between our Lord and His disciples, perhaps there is something about this encounter that resonates within us as well.
Behind what locked doors do we find ourselves? Has life come at us in such a way that we too experience great fear and doubt and confusion; and, in response, we hide away and lockout the rest of the world? Only to realize in our haste that although we have locked the world out, we have also locked ourselves in … alone with all of those doubts, and fears, and failings.
Although we may be able to lock the world out, Jesus can still enter-in. Jesus can still find us wherever we are just like He found His disciples on that day.
And this becomes that sacred space within us; that place where we encounter Jesus and our fear turns to joy, our doubts turn to wonder. The place where His presence alone brings shalom, peace, and assurance that there is nowhere we can go that He cannot reach us and strengthen us and forgive us and give us all we need to emerge and endure and flourish. “My peace I give you,” the Lord tells us, “That peace which the world cannot give.”
Peace is not the absence of tribulation – Peace is the ability to face the storms of life without fear or despair.
Peace is not the absence of doubt – Peace transforms our doubts into wonder and believing beyond our own understanding – that there something more and it is worth fighting for.
Peace is not the absence of pain, or suffering, or sorrow – Peace is God’s presence that gives us the wisdom and strength and courage to endure and prevail.
“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not been revealed to us just yet. But, what we do know is this: when Jesus comes again, we will be like Him for we will see Him as He is.” We know that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character, hope and hope does not disappoint because God’s love has been poured-out and given to us through His Son Jesus Christ – Who has risen and comes to us in whatever sacred space we find ourselves and breathes upon us “Shalom”.
Before Jesus departs from His disciples, He commissions them as He commissions us as well: “You are witnesses of these things, now, and therefore, you must preach and share and witness to all nations, to all people.”
In word and deed and how we live out our days, who we are all called to be as children of God, we bear witness to these things. To love our Lord Jesus Christ above all things, to love one another as we have been loved by Him, to forgive as we have been forgiven…we bear witness to these things.
Christ is risen. Upon us He breathes Shalom, “Peace be with you.”
Amen
