Thought for the Month
Are there are days when, in the present world situation that you, like me, would prefer just to lock the doors of our house and shut out the circumstances, evil and aggression of this fallen world?
It was in one of those moments that I remembered the disciples meeting together a week after the first Easter evening, gathered in the house, with the doors locked. Jesus’ tomb is open and empty, but the disciples’ room is shut up, and the doors are locked tight. The house has now become their tomb. Jesus is freed from His tomb, but the disciples are locked in theirs by fear. The doors that are now locked have become the equivalent of that great stone sealing the tomb in.
When St. John described the house, and the doors and the locks, he was speaking about more than simply a physical house, a house with walls, doors on hinges, and deadbolts, he is describing the interior condition of Jesus disciples. The locked places of our lives are always more about what is going on inside of us, than what is going on outside of us.
What are the locked places of our lives? Do you and I have something that keeps us in the tomb? Is it fear, maybe it is questions, disbelief, or the conditions we place on our faith. Perhaps it is sorrow and loss. Maybe the wounds are so deep it does not seem worth the risk to step outside. For others it may be anger and resentment. Some perhaps, are unable or unwilling to open up to new ideas, possibilities, and change. Jesus is always entering the locked places of our lives. He comes sometimes unexpected, sometimes uninvited, and sometimes even unwanted. He steps into our closed lives, closed hearts, and closed minds.
Standing among us right now, in our fallen and broken world, He offers peace and breathes new life into us. He doesn’t open the door for us, but He gives us all we need so that we might open our doors to a new life, a new creation, a new way of being.
Rev Peter