The Remedy To Our Fears And Doubts

April 19, 2023

Rev. Mary Erickson

Hope Lutheran Church

John 20:19-31; Acts 2:1-4a, 22-32

The Remedy to Our Fears and Doubts

Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Easter Doldrums. It’s the feeling we get after the high of Easter Sunday. The trumpets are polished and back in their cases; the lilies have faded; the leftover ham is all used up. The Easter break is over and now it’s back to school and work.

After the high of Easter Sunday, we slump into a low. There’s something very fitting about hearing this text from John every year on the Sunday following Easter. It matches our emotions.

The story begins on the evening of Easter. They’ve seen the empty tomb; the women have reported that Jesus appeared to them. Jesus is alive. And now, what do they do? They lock themselves into their room!

The door is shut tight and locked. Jesus has burst from his tomb, but they’re creating their own kind of living tomb. What’s shut them in there? It’s fear. They were afraid.

Fear locks us up. Like Jesus’ tomb, it’s a kind of death. We retreat into hiding. Sometimes, we literally hide ourselves; other times we hide inwardly. We might show a brave front on the outside, but inside, we’re terrified. We keep our frightened inner self cowered on the inside.

Fear causes us to retreat. There was a man who lived in the former Yugoslavia. Near the end of World War II, Janez Rus went into hiding. He feared the Nazis and so he hid himself in his family farm buildings. And he kept on hiding for 32 years! During his self-imposed hiding, Janez did absolutely nothing. He cried to himself whenever he heard happy voices. At long last he was discovered. He stated, “"If I had not been discovered, I would have remained in hiding. So I am happy that this happened."

Fear locked the disciples into that room. But Jesus was bigger than their fear. Death couldn’t contain him in his grave, and fear couldn’t keep him from his disciples. Even with the doors locked, Jesus appeared in their midst. And what he said was, “Peace be with you.”

The peace of the risen Jesus is the antidote to fear. His presence extinguished their fear. Jesus stepped into their midst and his presence filled them with joy.

These are the same disciples we encountered in our reading from Acts. The story takes place just after the event of Pentecost. Once again, the disciples were back in their isolated room. But the Holy Spirit rushed through their midst and filled them with peace and joy.

Out into the streets they tumbled, speaking in an array of tongues. When the people of Jerusalem wondered if maybe they were drunk, Peter stepped up to speak. We heard part of his bold speech today.

How is it that the disciples went from cowering in their room to boisterously spilling into the street? They were filled.

Our reading today from John contains a “little Pentecost.” Jesus breathes on his disciples. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he said. Before his arrest, he had promised to send them the advocate. And now he breathes that Holy Spirit on them.

Whatever joy they felt that day, it seems like the “glow” wore off of them, much like it does on us one week after Easter. We’re caught in the midst of the swift current of life. Our fears and concerns loom large once again.

A week later, the disciples are once again isolated in their room. The door isn’t locked this time, but it is shut tight. Thomas gets the bad wrap for being the doubter, but has all that much changed for the others? Not really.

Fear and doubt are our perennial companions. The Christian writer C.S. Lewis spoke of the time when God seemed absent to him. It was after the death of his wife Joy from bone cancer. They had been married for only three years. He felt anger towards God. As his faith was tested to its breaking point, he wrote the book A Grief Observed. He wrote:

“Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, if you turn to Him then with praise, you will be welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence”

These are the sufferings of our fears and doubts. We’re locked inside our room. Will God ever break into our midst with his gift of peace?