Behind Closed Doors

There is a stark contrast between the epistle reading today and the gospel reading. In the gospel reading we start out with 10 disciples gathered together in a room in fear of the Jews who had crucified the Lord. Judas was of course gone, and Thomas was missing that day. It is conceivable that others were there too, but the image we get is a small group of fearful people. When we read the epistle we see the apostles performing a multitude of signs and wonders among the people. They were healing the sick, driving out demons, adding people to the Christian community, and being let out of prison by an angel. It’s hard to believe that this is the same group of people, and even more difficult to imagine that the length of time between the two events is a matter of months, not years.

The room where they were staying was the same room in which our Lord had celebrated the Mystical Supper and communed His disciples with His own body and blood. But of those who received, one betrayed Him, one denied Him, all but Saint John left Him and were scattered. But what is so marvelous about this is that even when they were holed up in fear, still scared that they might share Christ’s fate, still unwilling to believe that Christ had risen from the dead despite the reports of the Myrrhbearing Women, Christ appears to them in that room behind locked and closed doors.

Christ appears and He gives His peace to the disciples. He breathes on them and says “receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Saint John Chrysostom says that it may be that He didn’t give them the Holy Spirit as He would at Pentecost, but rather prepared them to receive the Holy Spirit. But behind closed doors, in the midst of a skeptical and fearful people He comes and begins to make His Church. His body which was broken and pierced for them is present for them. He empowers them to loose and bind sins and grants them peace.

This becomes the model for Church life. The Church is the place where our sins are forgiven, we are granted peace, and our Lord becomes present bodily for us. This was true in the upper room where the disciples were, it was true when Christ dined with Luke and Cleopas on the road to Emmaus, it is true in magnificent cathedrals throughout the world, and it is true now in this humble building in Nampa Idaho.

What we see with Saint Thomas is that he is given the same experience that the other disciples received. Our Lord, knowing exactly what Saint Thomas had said, appeared again behind closed doors a week later and showed His hands and His feet to Thomas. He grants His peace to them again, and calls Thomas to believe.

This is what brings us from fearful to miraculous. The Lord appeared repeatedly after His resurrection. Saint Paul lists some of them, “He was seen by Cephas [Peter], then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.” The Lord appears to His Disciples not just to comfort them, but to unite them in peace, to demonstrate the reality of His resurrection, to increase their faith, and to be with them bodily. The Acts of the Holy Apostles says that  “He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.”

In several weeks, we will celebrate the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. On that day, they were again gathered in that same upper room. They numbered 120 people all together. But when they received the Holy Spirit, they were empowered to take what Christ had given them both in His public ministry, and privately after the Resurrection and to begin to tell others the gospel that the Lord Jesus Christ has defeated sin, death and the devil and has given us life.

The Acts of the Apostles begins with the description of the gospel of Luke as “all that Jesus began both to do and teach.” What we see after the Descent of the Holy Spirit is the continuation of what Jesus began to do and teach. The disciple for all of their character flaws and weaknesses become as Christ to the world. They become members of His body, and we are inheritors of that same life.

So no matter how sinful we have been, no matter what our struggles or our fears, we gather together with one another behind closed doors and we confess our sins. Christ appears to us and offers us His peace, reveals to us the things we need to bolster and strengthen our faith, Offers us the Holy Spirit, gives us of His Body and Blood, making us one in His Body, and then He sends us out into the world to proclaim the gospel – the good news of His victory.

We are not expected to show up with any of the things that He offers to us. We are coming to Church to offer ourselves up, but we are not perfect, we are being perfected. We are broken but are being made whole. We are unbelieving, but all will be revealed if we are faithful.

So on this day, remember that often the most important thing that we do is to show up. We have so many reasons for staying away, so many excuses for why we can’t make it. But why would we want to listen to those reasons, or make excuses to be absent from Christ Himself. Imagine the regret that Saint Thomas had for a week, knowing that he had not been with the other Disciples that day, and fearing that He might not be given the same joy as the others. But the other thing that is so important is that we not forget to take Christ with us as we go back into the world. Don’t let what happens behind closed doors stay trapped within these walls. Take the joy and the peace, the sanctification that is offered to you and express your joy over these things to all that you encounter. When we do that, this joy multiplies both for ourselves and for those around us.