JESUS CALMS OUR FEARS AND RECONNECTS US
Text: Luke 24:36-49
Luke 24:36-49 While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." (37) They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. (38) He said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? (39) Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." (40) And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. (41) While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" (42) They gave him a piece of broiled fish, (43) and he took it and ate in their presence. (44) Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." (45) Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, (46) and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, (47) and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. (48) You are witnesses of these things. (49) And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."
On Easter morning, the women had gone to anoint the body of Jesus at the tomb. This was one of the responsibilities assumed by women of the first century in Jewish culture. (Kenneth J. Collins & Robert W. Wall. eds. John Wesley One Volume Commentary. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2020, p. 641). They were stunned when the tomb was empty. The angels in the tomb told the women that Jesus had risen from the dead. The resurrection changes everything! “Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women who were with them told the eleven Apostles that Jesus had risen from the dead (Luke 24:10). Thomas was with them at this moment. They did not believe the women thinking of this report as idle talk. They went to investigate as Peter raced ahead to be the first one in the tomb to see for himself. Peter was amazed to see empty linen cloths there. Jesus appeared to those on the Emmaus Road and even appeared to Peter individually ( Luke 24:34 and I Corinthians 15:4 - 8) before later appearing in the Upper Room.
In today’ text, we know that ten of Jesus’s twelve disciples were staying behind closed doors because of fear. Judas Iscariot took his life out of guilt for betraying Jesus. Based upon John 20:19 and 24, we know that Thomas was not in the Upper Room at this moment. These ten were in hiding when in the Upper Room for fear of the of the Jews (John 20:19) when Jesus appeared to them.
Today we want to talk about fears, how Jesus calms our fears and how Jesus reconnects us. This sermon seeks to address how Jesus ministers to us and how we are called to witness to others.
FEARS
Can fear paralyze us?
1) The Upper Room: It seems as though the Upper Room had become a Panic Room as the disciples stayed huddled and secluded behind locked doors. Perhaps, this scripture of being behind closed doors means more to us now than ever before. Why?
2) Covid 19: In the world we live in today, we can identify a lot with those disciples. Just last year, we were told to go on lock down because of Covid 19. We were told that essential businesses could stay open but that churches would have to close or reduce their size wear masks and social distance from one another. It seems that the world was conditioning us to live in fear because of Covid 19. It has been reported as recent as this week that some exaggerated the statistics of Covid 19 for the purpose of creating even more fear. Isn’t it interesting how the lectionary texts seem to always manage to address current issues?
3) Fear: If there was a common theme between all of the doors that we hide behind (from both the past and the present), then it seems that it would have to be fear. Is our fear creating distance between who we are and who God wants us to be? Isolation and fear create distance.
Do you remember how Jesus told His disciples that they would all run like scared sheep?
1) Prophesy: Jesus told His disciples that they would all run at the time of His arrest in Mark 14:27: "You will all fall away, Jesus told them, "for it is written: "`I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered'" (Zechariah 13:7).
2) Short lived bravery: Thomas made his courageous statement, "Let us go that we might die with Him" (John 11:16), he was ready to die with Jesus. But, when they arrested Jesus, Thomas was not no where to be found. Peter who was usually bold and dauntless followed Jesus from a distance but he too, fell short of his promise! Isolation and fear create distance.
Do you remember How Jesus told Peter that Satan wanted to sift him like wheat? Jesus said to Peter “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat” (Luke 22:31). What Jesus meant was that Satan would be the chaff in his religion if indeed there was any wheat at all. This comment was not just for Peter but for all of the disciples as well. (Jamison, Fausset & Brown). It was then that Jesus went on to tell Peter that he would deny Jesus three times before rooster would crow at sunrise (Luke 22:34). As Jesus had warned, Peter also fell away in fear. Peter also ran scared. Isolation and fear create distance.
How would you respond if you encountered someone who was supposed to be dead? Now it is three days since the crucifixion and the disciples are in hiding. The Upper Room where they had shared the last supper with Jesus was becoming a Panic Room---a safe place. They hid because they were in fear for their lives. They probably had a mixture of emotions like grief, despair and maybe even anger. No doubt they felt disconnected!. Seeing Jesus resurrected changed all that!.
Last August, a young woman who was declared dead at her suburban Detroit home opened her eyes at a funeral home as she was about to be embalmed.1 Found unresponsive at home, paramedics had been called and tried for 30 minutes to revive her, but with no success. An emergency room doctor was consulted and agreed with the paramedics, and so she was pronounced dead. More than an hour later, as she was about to be embalmed, she opened her eyes and was rushed to the hospital. Can you imagine the stories the witnesses had to tell? Things like this just don’t happen! (“Woman declared dead by paramedics found to be alive at Detroit funeral home: ‘They were about to embalm her,’” CBS News, August 25, 2020, www.cbsnews.com/news/woman-declared-dead-found-alive-detroit-funeral-home/#app. [https://www.proclaimsermons.com/viewSermon.asp?sermID=3752&title=Bearing%20Witness%20to%20the%20Resurrection&lection=1]
The disciples were afraid because they were like sheep separated from their Shepherd until they saw the Good Shepherd our resurrected Lord and Savior Jesus Christ appear before them in the Upper Room.
JESUS CALMS OUR FEARS
Does a crisis make us feel isolated from others? Do you remember when the disciples experienced a storm in the Galilean Sea? Is there such a thing as faithless faith? How solid is our faith in Jesus in a crisis?
1) Faithless faith: They had Jesus with them in the boat and yet they were scared because of a storm. Now four of those twelve disciples in the boat were seasoned fishermen, (Andrew, Peter, James and John) who had more than likely encountered a storm like this before. Jesus questioned them about their lack of faith and then calmed the storm in nature as well as the storm in their spirit.
2) Undeniable eye-witnessed events: They had seen all the numerous times that Jesus was at work liberating the captives, healing the sick, exercising evil spirits from those who were possessed, helping the lame to walk, the blind to see and even the time Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead. When He was crucified they thought that they had no future. Jesus was raised from the dead to to help His eye witness disciples then and His disciples today who strive walk by faith and not by sight (II Corinthians 5:7 NRSV). Jesus wants us to help others understand that He has taken care of our past (John 1:29), given us a life of abundance (John 10:10) in the here and now. Jesus wants us to help others with a mission to share the gospel with the least, the last and the lost.
Were they alone without a shepherd after Jesus was crucified?
1) Alone?: Without Jesus, they were like sheep without a shepherd. One of our biggest fears is loneliness! Vietnam POWs knew all too well how being isolated to their 4 ft by 7 ft cell was demoralizing. Communication between prisoners was forbidden and violators were often beaten. They had learned to communicate on the wall by tapping. The late John McCain, Lt. Jerry Coffee and the late Rear Admiral Jeremiah Denton who were all fellow POWs at Hanoi for seven years. They all went on to write books about their experience as a POW. “Were it not for this tenuous contact with fellow prisoners, McCain says that loneliness would have destroyed him.” (Jeff Walling. Until I Return. West Monroe, Lousianna: Howard Publishing Company, 2000, p. 40). Jesus told us that He would be with us to the end of the age when He comes back to claim His kingdom.
2) The last word: Satan would love for us to be defeated and demoralized believing the lie that we are alone! During this time in the Upper Room the disciples were forgetting that God has the last word!. Does that not describe us so well? Have we forgotten that God has the last word? God has the last word on sin! God has the last word on the fear of death! God has the last word on death because on the cross death was conquered (I Corinthians 15:26).
JESUS RECONNECTS US
Remember how Jesus entered the Upper Room reconnected with them and greeted them?
1) Possible impossibilities? Jesus entered the Upper Room without using the doors (John 20:19). If Jesus can heal lepers, make the lame to walk, the blind to see, the mute to speak, calm storms, walk on water and raise the Lazaurs from the dead, be resurrected from the dead Himself, then how can anything be impossible for Jesus? How can entering a room without using the doors be impossible? Jesus can open doors that no one can shut and shut doors that no one can open (Revelation 3:7- 8).
2) Skeptics: There are two well known Christians who were former atheists whose lives were changed. They both had determined that they would disprove that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. One of them, Josh McDowell went on to write “Evidence That Demands a Verdict”. The other Lee Strobel went on to write, “The Case For Christ”.
Jesus was helping them to make the connections that they needed to make. “The disciples thought that Jesus was going to establish an earthly kingdom but the crucifixion smashed that idea as if it were a flowerpot that had fallen from a ten-story building. The resurrected Jesus came into their company and proceeded to explain how what had happened to him was connected to what God had done and said before. Making connections is what any religion is about, helping people understand how they fit into the cosmos, how their lives connect with the past and the future and, most importantly of all, how we connect with God. The resurrection of Christ teaches us that our connection with God and others does not end when our mortal-cord is severed.” (Russell F. Anderson. Lectionary Preaching Workbook. Series V. Cycle B. Lima: CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 2008, p. 195). Jesus’s kingdom is not of this world!
How are we helping others who are scared to connect? Jesus opened the minds in the Upper Room to the scriptures about the Messiah from Moses, the prophets and psalms and how they were fulfilled. Jesus reminds the disciples that they have been witnesses to all that they have seen for a reason. Acts 1: 8 tells us what Jesus was sending them to do as His witnesses in the world: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (ESV). God uses the witness of Christian disciples in every age to open the minds of those who receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. God who works in us and through us also draws those to whom we witness to in the Name of Jesus Christ (Matthew 16:17 & John 6:65) . Some disciples will plant seeds and others will water seeds of the Gospel planted by others but it is the Lord who brings forth the increase (I Corinthians 3:6 - 9). We are never alone because God is with us!
How many in our world today are hiding in their version of a panic room feeling like there is little hope? Are these not the last, the least and the lost to whom God has called us to go and share the Gospel? God is not willing that anyone perish but that all come to repentance (II Peter 3:9).
But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? (Romans 10:14 NRSV).
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
