H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian
9 May 2004
TEAR DOWN THE WALLS!
John 20:19-31
If you’re a bottom line person, here’s the bottom line of Easter: Jesus died and rose again so
that you and I can have life, abundant life, eternal life, a spiritual life that fulfills and completes us.
Giving to you and me this largeness of life is why Jesus Christ came into the world. Notice how John
closes today’s passage. “(These things) are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the
Messiah…and that through believing you may have life in his name.”
We all want that kind of life, but barriers that get in our way. That’s the subject of this story
from John’s gospel: the barriers that come between us and abundant life, and the power of the risen
Christ to break through those barriers.
It is the evening of Easter Sunday and the disciples are cowering behind a locked door. Mary
Magdalene has told them that Christ is alive, but the disciples are holed up like frightened victims with
the shades drawn, the lights low, and the doors locked. Not just one door, the outer entrance to the
house, as well as the inner door are deadlocked, bolted and chained. But the doors behind which the
disciples hide cannot stop the Lord of Life. Jesus comes through those locked doors and stands
among his people.
Why are the doors locked? The disciples are afraid! The same people who killed Jesus may
come looking for the followers of Jesus. The disciples’ fear is a locked door standing between them
and the abundant life of Christ.
Fear can be a formidable barrier. Fear can keep us from embracing the challenges and
opportunities of a full life. Fear can keep us from taking the risks that lead to growth and maturity.
Fear can turn us into workaholics. One of the reasons people work compulsively is because they’re
afraid to stop, afraid that they don’t have any worth or value apart from their accomplishments and
their earnings.
Fear can blockade genuinely loving relationships. One day I had a conversation with the
director of therapy at the Buckhorn Children’s Center. I asked him, “Why do these kids work so
hard to be unlovable? I mean, look at their behavior: drugs, running away, stealing, fighting, violence
against others and against themselves. Are they so angry at the world? He said, “A little of it is anger,
but mostly they’re afraid. They’ve been betrayed and let down so many times by people they trusted
that they’re afraid now to let anyone get close. The uglier they can behave the more distance they can
put between themselves and anyone who might try to love them.”
Fear can be a big, thick, iron-studded, locked door between us and full life in Christ. But Christ
flings open that locked door. Let’s be clear on the Easter message. The Christ who conquered death
and humbled every hurtful power, that Christ loves us. In the power of that victorious, saving love,
what is left for us to fear? Spend some time in the 1st Letter of John and meditate on these words.
“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them… There is no fear
in love, but perfect love casts out fear…” (1 John 4:16,18 NRSV). The opposite of fear isn’t
courage. If courage were the only way out of fear, we’d all be sunk. But in fact, the opposite of fear
is love. The more Christ’s love fills our lives, the less room remains for fear. In the end, love casts out
fear—grabs fear by the scruff of the neck and pitches it out the door.
Of course, fear is not the only barrier to abundant life. Sin and guilt also build fences between us
and the life Christ died to give us. Has it occurred to you that maybe the disciples in that locked room
weren’t all that eager to meet the risen Christ? With the exception of a handful of followers—mostly
women—the disciples had abandoned Jesus to the authorities, renounced his teachings, pretended
they didn’t know him, hid during the crucifixion, and didn’t even visit his grave after he was dead.
The disciples weren’t just scared; they were ashamed, too, imprisoned behind the locked door
of sin and guilt, a cell door double-bolted by the painful memory of their own failures. Sin and
guilt are not identical, of course. Some people sin without feeling guilty. And some innocent people
suffer from terrible guilt through no fault of their own, due to the scars of childhood, or impossible
goals, or from trying to live up to the demands of others. Sin and guilt are not the same thing. They
may travel together or they may arrive separately. Either alone is enough to lock us away from
abundant life.
But see that Christ came anyway! He came through the locked doors. He came to those sinful
and guilt-ridden disciples, and he comes to us. As he did for those disciples in the upper room, so he
does for us. He bids us be at peace, and he gives us the Holy Spirit who forgives our sins, washes
away the stain of our guilt, and allows us to forgive ourselves.
And that’s what most of us need—to forgive ourselves of our sins, both the real sins and the
undeserved shame that weigh so heavy upon us. God had promised to forgive those who ask for it;
there’s no question about God’s forgiveness. The only question is whether we can forgive ourselves
and start living into the joy and freedom offered by Christ. The door of shame and guilt is locked on
the inside, not on the outside.
Again from John’s first letter, “We will be confident when we stand before the Lord, even if our
hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and God knows everything,” (1 John 3:19-
20). God knows our sins, God knows our shame, and God knows that the grace of Christ is enough
to set us free. God knows we are forgiven, and shall we let our hearts contradict God’s promise?
Fear… Guilt… And, of course, there was also the barrier of doubt. A lot of disciples are still
cringing in the shadow of towering doubt. Oh, we aren’t as crass as Thomas. We don’t doubt that
Jesus came back from the dead; it’s just that we can’t believe it makes any difference. Christ may be
alive, but he doesn’t seem to be alive in us. Christ may reign on high, but he doesn’t seem to reign
down here. Christ may promise us life on the other side of death, but that doesn’t seem to make
much difference in our lives on this side of the grave. The disbelief that locks so many Christians away
from abundant life is not doubt about what Jesus did back in the 1st Century; it is skepticism over
whether Jesus is doing anything in the 21st Century.
Sometimes we settle for the outward shape of religion without its inward power. Do you
remember the ending of Matthew’s Gospel? (insert…)
Knowing that he has given them a challenging job, knowing that hardships and struggles await,
knowing their skepticism, Jesus speaks to the doubts of his disciples. “Remember, I am with you
always.” If we can claim that promise and live in that conviction, the wall of doubt will crack and
crumble and fall.
I could go on a long time naming the walls and the locked doors that imprisoned the first disciples
on the first Easter. There may be barriers in your life that don’t show up in that particular story, but
we don’t need to list every possible barrier to abundant life in order to make the point. And the point
is this: no barrier can turn Christ aside. No locked door can stand for long between us and the
fullness of life that Christ offers us.
Christ can free us. Christ will free us. But there are some things we can do to claim our freedom.
Let me quickly offer three New Testament pointers that may prepare us to receive Christ into our
locked-up lives.
The first pointer is: Be prepared for Jesus to show up anywhere, anytime, anyhow. Christ may
open your prison doors through very ordinary events and people. If the disciples had believed the
report of Mary Magdalene, they wouldn’t have hidden themselves in a locked room. If they’d
listened to Mary, they’d have known that Jesus had conquered death and risen from the grave. But
they didn’t listen to Mary. After all, Mary was nobody special. They saw her every day. Maybe the
disciples thought God’s angels always have wings and carry a harp, but that’s not true. The people in
your home or your office, the person sitting next to you on the bus or at the snack bar or the pew
could well be a messenger of God’s grace—if we’d only pay attention.
We want to divide life into religious stuff and worldly stuff, but there is no such dividing line, not
since the risen Christ received all authority in heaven and on earth. Christ is Lord of everything, and
there is nothing our Lord cannot use for our good. Let’s not overlook the hand of Christ reaching out
to us through doctors and counselors, through friends and strangers, and books and movies and
Alcoholics Anonymous and phone calls and anything else Christ might want to use. Miracles arrive
every day dressed in street clothes. What a waste if we turn them away!
The second pointer is: Don’t stray from the community of faith. The fellowship of the church is
essential to our Christian life. The practice we get here, the reminders, the learning, the support, the
opportunities for service, it all breathes the life of Christ into us. Notice that Thomas doesn’t meet the
risen Lord until he is with the other disciples.
Get a good fire going—in your grill or your fireplace or at your campsite. Get a good fire going. Then
rake one log out of the fire. Pull it out by itself and see what happens. Does that lone log keep
burning? Not for long. It may smolder a while, it will smoke for a bit, but the fire goes out. Trying to
be a Christian apart from the church is like trying to keep a log burning by itself. It just doesn’t work.
The last pointer suggested in this story is that just being in the presence of Christ is a healing,
freeing experience. Just to spend time with Christ in prayer, in worship, in study, in service, is to begin
knocking down the barriers that get in the way of abundant life. I once heard a preacher say, “When I
pray, coincidences happen.” I find that to be true. When I am serious and faithful in prayer, somehow
I stumble into abundance. Chance meetings occur; I happen to be at the right place; I come across
the book or the article that is just what I need.
When I keep connected with Christ, “coincidences” happen. Life flows into the channel of God’
s good purposes. Shove a piece of iron into an electrical field and the iron becomes magnetic. The
iron draws to itself. When we live and move within the “field” of Christ’s presence, we are somehow
magnetized, and we attract life, opportunities for ministry, the gifts we need to serve, the inward and
outward resources that equip us for life. I don’t know what happens when we intentionally place
ourselves in the presence of Christ day after day. All I know is that abiding in Christ opens the door
to abundant life.
The disciples of Jesus have been confronted by locked doors since the beginning, obstacles
that keep us from living fully and joyfully. But no locked door can keep Christ from us, and no locked
door can keep us from life in Christ. Do you remember that triumphant vision from the book of
Revelation? The heavens part and there is the risen Christ, standing triumphant over the whole world.
In his hand are the keys to life and death, and to the church he says, “Behold, I have set before you
an open door which no one is able to shut!”
In Christ there are no more insurmountable barriers, no more spiritual jail cells, no more locked
doors. In Christ there is only an open door that leads to life.
Soli Deo Gloria!