A Sermon Based on John 20:19-31

Preached April 7, 2002

By Donald M. Tuttle

First Christian Church, Corpus Christi, Texas

As a recent divorcee, she is pleased to find a New York brownstone for her and her daughter. It is to be the place from which they would begin life anew.

But their joy turns to terror when three thugs break into her new home. They are seeking millions of dollars hidden there by the former owner. To escape, the woman and her daughter retreat to the home’s one unique feature--a self-contained concrete super nook with an impenetrable steel door, video monitors and a loudspeaker system. Their intention is simple. They will hunker down in safety until the robbers go away.

Of course, you may by now recognize the plot of the latest Jodie Foster movie, Panic Room. And if you have seen the commercials, you know there is much more to the story. But what the woman and her daughter first intended is pretty much what the Jesus’ disciples did after his crucifixion. Fearing the same people that had arrested, convicted and crucified him, they retreated to their own panic room, to the safety of a home where they could close and bar the door. They probably figured they would hunker down for a while, wait out the danger, and then when the uproar over Jesus had passed they would slip out of Jerusalem and back to their old lives. They probably figured that once the crisis was over, they could go back to the way things used to be.

We can’t fault the disciples, can we? Such hunkering down is a pretty common response to fear. It happens still today.

While I was in Nashville this week, I picked up one of those free real estate papers to brose over lunch. Among the properties pictured was a beautiful old brick church. I suspect at one time a Lutheran or Evangelical Reformed congregation met there. At least, that’s what the architecture suggested. But the congregation was gone now. The blurb presented this downtown building as the perfect new home for attorneys or architects.

I don’t know that congregation’s story. Maybe they out grew that building and bought elsewhere. Maybe they made a strategic decision to move to the growing side of town. Maybe. But 99 out of 100 such buildings are for sale because the congregation died. What had been a quiet neighborhood populated by families of German descent began to change. Folks sold their homes to new people--maybe African-Americans or lower-income Anglos--and then moved to better communities away from downtown. The folks that remained in the congregation became frightened by the changes. Rather than adjust, they turned the church into their panic room. They would rush inside each Sunday and socially and psychologically bar the door. They would hunker down, waiting to the crisis to pass, telling them that if they waited long enough the good old days would come again. Of course, they grew older and older, passing away one by one until there were too few to sustain the congregation or until denominational officials said, "Enough is enough and closed the doors for good."

It was fear that ultimately destroyed them.

Rueben Swint tells a similar story. The congregation in which he grew up was for years a pillar in his denomination. It was and remains in a fine neighborhood in a nice part of the city. It has a large endowment, giving it the potential to do most anything it might have desired. The building, which seats 1200 in the sanctuary, remains a beautiful place to worship. Unfortunately, only 60 people gather in it each week--and a full half of those are, in Swint’s words, "little old white-haired widows over the age of 75, including my mother."

What happened? They became frightened by the changes in the culture. Everything from the anti-institutionalism of the 1960s to the advent of the technological revolution in the ‘90s were seen as a threat. And so they decided to keep that small corner of their world--keep their church--just the way it was in the ‘50s. Now the only people who go there are those nostalgic for a bygone era.

In fear, they hunkered down and prayed that what was happening all around them would stop and they could go back to the way things used to be.

Of course, their fears are not our fears. Oh, our community has changed, but we still live quite comfortably in it. Certainly our culture has changed, but we have adapted well through the years. No, their fears are probably not our fears, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t afraid.

Recently I was talking to a friend about evangelism. I mentioned a fast-growing church here in town. It has proven itself very effective in bring people into a life-giving relationship with Christ. It is apparently succeeding in teaching people to pray and helping them to understand the Bible. It is leading people into honestly and openly sharing their faith and serving other people. Yet my friend was clearly reluctant to learn from them. "We wouldn’t want to be like them," he said.

It would be impossible for us to do what they are doing in the way in which they are doing it. But I think my friend was expressing more than a reluctance to do what they were doing. His fear was that we would be perceived as they are perceived, that our identity as Christians who make as little publicly of their faith as possible might be compromised. In short, that if we learned from them, adopted some of the things they are doing, became more evangelistic, people might think of us as Bible-thumpers or those who think they are holier than thou. Better, the thinking goes, to hunker down; keep the faith the way we have for years; wait out the storm of a deteriorating culture and a rising interest in traditions with a more dynamic faith; and pray that our day will come again.

But such an approach misses one of the fundamental truths of the resurrection. Christ drives out fear. His presence banishes fear and his power compels us into the future.

It happened in the disciples’ panic room. There they were, cowering in fear of those who had crucified Jesus. But on Easter evening, into to that locked room, Jesus appeared. His presence was unexpected. Oh, some of the women had said he had been raised from the dead. Peter and John even ran to the tomb and found it empty. But it was not until Jesus appeared to them, spoke a blessing of peace and showed them his hands and side did they really know he was alive. But from that moment on, there was peace. Their fear was banished. Their confidence in God renewed.

But more than that, they were empowered for a new ministry. Like God in creation, when he breathed life into humanity--like God in the book of Ezekiel, when he promised to gather up the dried bones of the nation Israel, reconnect them, clothe them and breathe new life in them--Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit not only on the disciples but into them and sends them into ministry. "As the Father sent me, so I send you," he said. He told them that if they forgive sins they are forgiven and if they retain the sins of any they will be retained. In other words, he made them the agents through which people would either accept God’s love and grace or reject it. They were given the commission and power to carry on the reconciling work of Jesus among the Jews, the Samaritans, the Gentile, even you and me. They were empowered to go without fear into the world.

This same truth is conveyed in the story from Acts. There again the disciples were huddled together. There was less fear then, but they had, in Luke’s account, not yet begun to go into the world to share Christ with others.

But then the Holy Spirit came like a rushing wind and before he knew it Peter was standing before a sneering crowd, telling them about Jesus, telling them how he’d been sent by God, rejected by the people, crucified on the cross, but now--by God’s power and grace--raised from the dead and reigning at the right hand of God. He was telling them that he and all who had followed Jesus were witnesses to God’s grace and resurrection.

The presence of Christ banished the disciple’s fears and empowered them to a new ministry of sharing the Gospel with people from all over the world.

In his book The Incomparable Christ, John Stott does a brief survey of church history. In it he recounts how Christians in each age adapted to their changing circumstances so that they could continue to preach the Gospel. They did so because they knew the presence of Christ was with them. They knew he had empowered them to continue his ministry.

Christians alive with the spirit of God are being called to do the same today. God is calling us out of the panic room. God is asking us to refuse to hunker down in safety but fearlessly go into the world to share Christ with others. God is calling us to count on Christ’s presence and his power to do the work we have been sent to do. Let us pray that we do just that.