On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” John 20:19
He was my first college roommate. We were both sophomore transfers, and while he was a terrific roommate, and we got along well, there was one problem.
“Hey, Paul, where have you been?”
“Across the hall, in David’s room – you locked me out. Again.”
“Sorry…but why don’t you just carry your room key? I know, I know, your family doesn’t lock the doors back home. Nobody locks their doors where you’re from…”
The one problem was that I kept locking Paul out of our room.
I was born and raised in Chicago. There were two doors with two locks each in the front of our house. Coming in the back way required you to come through four doors – two doors were bolted and latched while the other two were locked with skeleton keys…which were always left in the lock from the inside. So when things were locked in the back of the house, the only way in was through the front doors. That’s assuming you had your keys. This was pretty typical of most of the houses in my neighborhood.
You would think that locked doors bring a sense of security, but the fact is that locking doors to begin with actually stems from a sense of fear. On that evening…of that day – the first day of the week, the disciples had locked the doors out of fear of the Jews, the same Jews who plotted and orchestrated Jesus’ crucifixion.
But Jesus appears among the disciples and says, ‘Peace…you no longer need to be afraid of what is outside those doors. Jews, Romans, whatever.’
My roommate, Paul, was from a place I had never heard of.
“You mean you NEVER lock your doors in, what’s it called, Frankenmuth? Really, never?”
“Well, when we go on vacation, we might lock the front door…but not the back.”
“Why…not lock the back door?”
“Well, in case one of our neighbors needs to borrow something while we’re away.”
My first placement after graduation was in a town about 40 miles north of Frankenmuth – and even smaller, a mere crossroads out in the bean and sugar beet fields of Michigan’s Thumb. After living there a few years, we came home from one summer vacation and had to call a church trustee to help us get into the house, a Teacherage…because we had locked ourselves out. We stopped carrying house keys after living there a short time, and when we left on that particular vacation, we locked the doors behind us, forgetting that we no longer carried house keys.
Lots of things have locks, not just the doors to our house. I lock my car, my desk, my computer with a password, the hitch on my trailer. At church, the Ladies Aid even locks up “their funeral silverware.” But that’s another story…
We can even lock our hearts and minds when you think about it, often times shutting out others or keeping people at a distance. It may seem "safer" that way.
Jesus invites us to be at peace – to have peace in our hearts and not be anxious about anything, and to be at peace with one another. Now, this doesn’t mean that leaving things unlocked isn’t dangerous. Being open can be risky…but Jesus says that we need not be fearful. We can be at peace even amidst this world’s many dangers because Jesus promises that He stands among us.
He is Risen! He is Risen, indeed! Alleluia!
May we live in the peace of the Easter promise that because Jesus rose, so we, also, will one day be raised to live with Him eternally.