I probably
haven’t been in Las Vegas to generalize about it, but that’s never stopped me
before! I am struck by the number of
gated communities here. I understand the
need for security and have no objection to it, but it is sad to think that we
need it. It is even sadder to think of the fear that prompts our need for
security.
Fear causes us
to build walls not only around our homes but also around our hearts. Every
hurt, every harsh word, every assault on our pride and self-image adds another
brick to that wall.
Fear is not the
only reason that we build walls. We also build walls of shame around our lives.
Shame is the feeling that not only have done something wrong but we ARE
something wrong. We fear that we are defective, damaged goods that need to be
returned to the store for a refund or traded in for a new model.
Another wall we
build is the wall of grief. Do you remember Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations? Miss Havisham lives
her life behind a wall of grief, wearing the wedding dress she wore on the day
her fiancé jilted her. Who else do you know who still lives their life dressed
in the rags of mourning behind the walls that grief builds?
One of the strongest
walls we build is the wall of anger. I know a lot about the wall of anger. It
takes a lot to make me angry, but when I get angry, I tend to stay angry.
Theologian Frederick Buechner says that of all the seven deadly sins, angry is
possibly the most fun. Anger can give us that delicious sense of
self-righteousnessness. I’m right and you’re wrong or sometimes even the whole
world is wrong. Don’t misunderstand me: there is a time and place for anger,
and I believe it is just as dangerous to deny our anger as it is to hang on to
it too long. But anger is terribly dangerous. The wall of anger can be almost
impossible to penetrate.
Today’s gospel
reading says, “On the evening of the first day of the week, the doors being
shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among
them and said to them, "Peace be with you." In other words, the
disciples had built a wall of fear between themselves and the world that could
only be penetrated by the Risen Christ.
When the women
came to the tomb on Easter morning, they wondered who would roll the stone
away, but the disciples were hiding behind an even bigger stone - the stone of
fear.
The gospel of
Easter Day is great, good news, indeed:
Jesus rose from the dead. If you
will, he escaped from the prison of death that awaits each of us. The great hymns of Easter celebrate this: “He is risen, he is risen! Tell it out with joyful voice: he has burst his three days’ prison; let the
whole wide earth rejoice.”
But today’s
gospel is even better news: No sooner
had Christ broken out of the prison of death than he broke into the prison of
fear in which his followers were still trapped.
Another hymn by
Charles Wesley celebrates the power of the Risen Christ to free us from the
prisons of sin, fear, grief, and anger:
Long
my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast
bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine
eye diffused a quickening ray—
I
woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My
chains fell off, my heart was free.
I
rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
Not only did
Jesus break out the prison of death and break into the disciples’ prison of
fear, he also gave us the key to the prisons of fear, grief, and anger that
entrap us.
“Jesus said to
them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When
he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘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.’”
“If you forgive
the sins of any, they are forgiven… if you retain the sins of any, they are
retained.” In other words, the power to unlock the prisons of fear, grief, and
anger are in our hands.
Think about the
enormous power that the Risen Christ gave to the disciples in that locked room.
He gave them the power to release themselves and others from sin, from the
power of fear, grief, and anger, from everything that binds and imprisons us
and prevents us from reaching our full potential.
In other words,
Jesus called his disciples in that and every age to exercise the power of priests
to bind and loose. He gave us the key to open the doors to the prisons of sin,
anger, fear, and grief. The alternative is to choose to be victims. We can stay
locked in our dark, airless cells. We can luxuriate in the self-righteousness
of anger; we can wear the tattered rags of grief; we can pull the covers of
fear over our head.
What are the
prison doors you need to unlock? What are the offenses that you just can’t
forgive? What is the shame that you can barely admit to yourself, much less to
anyone else? How long have you been holding on to grief? Jesus has given you
the key.
“When it was evening on that day, the first
day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were
locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace
be with you.’” Jesus’ followers had not yet grasped the reality of the
resurrection; they had not yet begun to live into the meaning of Easter.
Easter is about
Christ’s escape from the tomb, but it is not about his escape from his
humanity. The heart of the Christian
faith is the idea of incarnation, the idea that God came among us as one of us,
that God took on flesh and blood and bone and lived a fully human life, that
God sanctifies all of human life, even our wounds. In Christ, God gathers up
all it means to be human and brings it into the divine presence. And to be
human is to carry many scars.
The Risen
Christ offers to let Thomas touch his wounds. That tells me that our wounds can
be sources of strength, that our wounds are not things to be ashamed of, but
things to wear with pride, if only we will offer them to God. It is only when
we let our wounds separate us from each other and from God that they become
toxic and sinful.
There is a
wonderful Buddhist parable. It is said that a certain woman lost her son, her
only child. In her grief she went to the Buddha. “Master,” she said, “I know
that you can work miracles. I pray that you would restore my son to life.” The
Buddha said to her, “I will do this for you. All I ask is that you bring me a
single grain of mustard seed.” The woman’s heart leapt with joy, but the Buddha
added, “But it must come from a house that has never known sorrow.” And with
that, she was plunged into grief again. She knocked on the door of every house
and asked if they had known sorrow and listened to their tales of anger, fear,
and grief. But she went on from house to house and village to village. Finally at
the end of the day she sat on the hillside overlooking the town. And as the sun
went down and the lights went on she realized that every one of us knows anger,
fear, and grief. Every one of us knows sorrow and suffering and that redemption
is found not in escaping our suffering but in embracing it.
The miracle of
Easter is not so much that Christ rose from the dead; if he was the Son of God,
that is what one would expect. The
miracle is that he remains bound by love to his followers, and comes to be with
us in the trials, hardships, and fears of human life.
What are the
prison doors that you need to unlock? Prison? Fear? Anger? Don’t let them separate you from God and from
others. Even now we can begin to live
the reality of the Resurrection. Take
hold of the promise of the Risen Christ:
“Peace be with you”. In spite of
the walls we have built around our hearts, the Risen Christ comes to speak
peace. But he gives us more than a word;
he gives us himself. Just as the Risen
Christ stretched out his wounded hands to Thomas, he stretches them out to us. Reach
out and take his hand. And then stretch out your hands to others.
