Stuck in the House (Second Sunday of Easter)

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Easter has been different this year.  On Easter Sunday, the church buildings were empty.  There were no Easter Egg hunts.  And there were no big Easter dinners with family and friends.  We were all stuck in the house.  And it felt weird, and just plain wrong.

And yet, as today’s Gospel reading makes clear, this was actually the way it was on the first Easter!  Easter morning rolled around, and all the disciples were stuck in the house.  And a week later, they were still there – still stuck in the house!

To be sure, a few of them ventured out for what we’re now calling “essential activities.”  Mary Magdalene left the house and headed for the tomb, just to be sure everything was still in order and that Jesus’ grave hadn’t been disturbed.  When she found the tomb open, Peter and the Beloved Disciple ran out to see what had happened, but then they quickly went back to the house.

And then there’s Thomas, who often gets a bad rap for not being present when the Risen Jesus first appeared to the disciples on Easter evening. But very likely, Thomas wasn’t there because he had drawn the short straw, and had been chosen as the one to venture out on the “essential trip” to the grocery store.  But soon afterwards, he was back – stuck in the house like all the rest.

That first Easter Sunday – indeed, the first Easter “season” – was a time of being stuck in the house.  And the disciples were stuck in the house because:

• There was a legitimate fear of being killed if they ventured out … Jesus had been executed as an opponent of both the Romans and the Temple authorities, and those folks were gunning for followers of Jesus as well; and even when the disciples realized that Jesus had been raised from the dead, the reality of that danger didn’t change for them …

• They couldn’t travel – most of them came from Galilee, and while it would be relatively easy to blend into the crowd after Passover, that would still be many days off yet…

• They didn’t know what the future would bring – at first, they didn’t know what to do after Jesus died.  Where would they go?  What would they do now?  But those same questions didn’t go away after they saw Jesus alive.  Now what?  Where do we go?  What do we do?

And so that first Easter, for those first disciples, was a time of being stuck in the house.  And yet, as hard as that must have been for them, that time of being stuck in the house ended up being an important part of their faith journey.  And it seems clear that Jesus was able to use their time stuck in the house to help them grow and appreciate some things that they’d soon come to rely on.

For it seems pretty clear that being stuck in the house provided the disciples an opportunity to:

• Rest and re-set – and they needed that.  We often read the story of Easter as a great and glorious moment when the disciples suddenly turned into happy carefree people.  But that clearly didn’t happen.  They had followed Jesus on a long journey, and they were tired.  They had watched Jesus die, and they were crushed.  And then, suddenly, Jesus was alive again!  And the emotional whiplash that must have caused didn’t just go away.  They needed time to rest and reflect, and get ready for a future they couldn’t possibly have envisioned before…

• Reconsider what it meant to be a follower of Jesus – all this time, they had (mostly) just wandered around with Jesus, watching and listening. Now, they were being called by Jesus to do new things.  When Jesus breathes on them and says, “if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven”, we often wonder what all this stuff about sin and forgiveness is really all about.  But the first reaction of the disciples was probably “what do you mean WE?!”  Isn’t forgiveness your job, and we watch?  What does it mean that we now have to do things we’ve never done before, and accept a different role than we’ve had in the past?  Those questions needed reflection and re-consideration.  And Jesus clearly used that time of being stuck in the house to get them to think about stuff like this …

• Appreciate that Jesus was going to be with them always, and everywhere they went.  Even their locked doors didn’t keep Jesus out.  And I think that gave them the confidence to know that nothing would ever be able to separate them from Jesus ever again – not death, not denial, not even those times and places where they thought they might have locked God out of their lives…

Sadly, we’ve been stuck in our houses for more than two weeks now.  And we’ll probably be locked down for a few more.  And we’re all missing the people, the activities and just the general freedom that we can’t enjoy while we’re stuck in the house.

But I think Jesus can use this time of being stuck in the house to help us grow in faith, just as he used that time with his first disciples.  And it seems to me that, as much as being stuck in the house is a pain, it’s also an opportunity Jesus is calling us to use to:

• Rest and re-set – one of the hardest things to do is to STOP doing what you’re doing and wonder whether it’s really important.  Most of us are usually extraordinarily busy people who are always on the move. But now, we’ve had to stop most things in our lives.  So what’s worth starting up again?  And if we start it, will we do it in the same way (this was actually a question in the devotions at our March Council meeting…)  Both as a congregation, and as individuals, we have an opportunity to use the time of being stuck in the house to really reflect on what’s worth our time and effort when we get to go out again.  What needs to stay stopped?  And what needs to change?  Those are questions for us, as well as those first disciples …

• Reconsider what it means to follow Jesus together – I think the first disciples really hadn’t considered what it would mean for them to be the agents of Jesus in the lives of others; they knew how to be followers, but now Jesus was calling them and teaching them to act in new ways.  One of the things we’ve been learning through these streaming worship experiences is that we’ve been able to connect with people and with people’s needs in ways that we never imagined before.  And we’re learning many of these online experiences need to continue even after we’re back in live worship; like those first disciples, we also need to learn to do new things and live in new ways once we’re not stuck in the house anymore …

• Appreciate that Jesus is with us even when we’re locked in the house.  That is, we can actually appreciate Jesus’ presence individually and communally, even when we can’t worship in the “normal” ways.  Jesus still finds a way into our locked away lives, and shows us that not even death and coronavirus can keep him away from us…

Being stuck in the house is hard.  It was hard for the disciples, too.  But eventually, they got unstuck.  And we’ll be unstuck in a little while, also.

And so like those first disciples, let’s use whatever time we’re stuck in the house to be open to rest and re-think how God wants us to use our time and energy.  Like those first disciples, let’s listen for the ways in which Jesus is calling us to grow and adapt to a different way of living.  And most of all, like those first disciples, let’s use this time to experience the truth that the risen presence of Jesus is always with us and among us, even when we’re stuck in the house.

Amen.