"What To Do After All The Eggs Are Gone?"

John 20:19-23

“What to Do After All the Eggs are Gone?”

By: Rev. Ken Sauer, Pastor of Grace UMC, Soddy Daisy, TN www.graceumcsd.org

When I was in college, I had a born again experience.

It was the most pivotal time of my life.

Nothing has been the same since.

I had been very caught up in the world when this occurred, but behold, all things had become new!!!

My biggest problem, though, was: “Now what do I do?”

One sunny day I was walking across campus, wondering and praying about this very thing, when I saw, on a bulletin board, a flyer which simply read: “Bible Study” and then it gave the time and the meeting place.

Boy, did this excite me, and I was there at the appointed time.

I became very involved with this new group of friends…

…it became the center piece of my activities.

We would meet every Wednesday afternoon by a statue on campus.

There we would have Bible study.

Every Tuesday afternoon we would set up a table outside the campus center with Christian tracts and invitations to come to the Bible study.

Then we would go out to the students on campus and witness to them.

I can still remember the hundreds of conversations I had with other young people about Jesus and the meaning of life.

I remember praying the “sinner’s prayer” with a number of people.

I remember, for the first time in my life, having other people who looked to me for help, healing and answers.

Those are fantastic memories.

I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world!

In our Gospel Lesson for this morning we find ourselves with the disciples in the evening of the first Easter.

And although Mary Magdalene had seen the Lord, and had run to them with the glorious news about His Resurrection—they had not experienced this for themselves…

…so they didn’t know what to think; they didn’t know what to do.

In their minds, Jesus was gone—for good.

And they were terrified!

For three years they had dedicated their lives entirely to following Jesus.

He had been their Lord, their Mentor—the One they looked to for all of life’s answers…

…He was their leader Who had always told them “What to do next.”

What a lost band of people.

They had seen Jesus arrested.

They had seen what the ruling officials had done to Him.

They had seen Him die the most horrible of deaths.

So terror had become their master…and what a cruel master that is.

They were afraid that their turn to be crucified would come next.

So they huddled together in the Upper Room, behind closed doors, listening fearfully for every step on the stairs and for every knock at the door.

They sat there, shaking in their sandals…

…and as they sat there, Jesus was suddenly in their midst.

Wow!

People have often wondered why Jesus didn’t come through the door…knocking first.

Why didn’t Jesus use the stairs?

It is because our God is not a God of fear, but of peace, love and grace.

If Jesus had come up the stairs and knocked on the door, it would have scared the disciples to death!!!

So instead, He just came and “stood among them and said, ‘Peace by with you!’”

And this is what Jesus does for us as well.

Jesus doesn’t force His way into our lives.

He doesn’t come with threats.

He is with us always, filled with grace and love and peace.

God is not out to scare us…

…God is out to comfort and save us.

We are told that Jesus showed the disciples “his hands and side,” and that, “the disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.”

And that is what happens to each one of us—when in the midst of our terror, we see that Jesus is with us, and we need not be afraid!

But then what?

What are we to do once we have experienced the transforming power of the Risen Christ in our lives?

We can’t stand around and do nothing.

And we certainly can’t go back to our old way of living.

Sure, we can try, but we will never be happy in it…once we have tasted for ourselves that the Lord is Good!

Our lives are never the same once we have met Jesus Christ, the Risen and Living Lord!!!

Jesus gives us the answer in our Gospel Lesson for this morning.

He says, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’

And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

It’s interesting, the fact that Christ breathed on the disciples seems to imply that He could now communicate with them something of His own nature which before hand He had been unable to do.