- Apr 12
- 7 min read
April 12, 2026
John 20:19-23
Every year… year after year… this is always the gospel story on the Sunday after Easter and I’ve often wondered why. Well… to be honest year after year after year I wonder why. What is it about this one passage that made someone somewhere decide this needed to be heard on a yearly basis. Forget that three-year lectionary cycle of readings… for this Sunday… this is it. For whatever reason… listen as God speaks to you again from the Gospel according to John.
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This year on Easter Sunday… reading the story from Matthew’s gospel… there was movement. The message to the faithful was to go… go away from the tomb… go away from death… go towards resurrection life… go to Jesus who is waiting for you in Galilee. There on the mountaintop you will meet him. Go. Go to Galilee.
This passage from John begins in a very different place… in a room with the doors locked. I think it is easy to imagine the lights low. The people inside talking in hushed voices. Not wanting to be seen. Not wanting to be heard. Not wanting to be found. This passage begins in fear. The message of resurrection has come to these disciples, but it has not dispelled the fear that has gripped them. They are afraid they might be next. It has been a brutal few days for them. They have seen the violence of the powers over them. They have seen their Master… the one they followed… the one in whom they had put so much hope… the Jesus who had washed their feet… who had called them friend… the Jesus who had given them a new commandment, to love one another as he loved them… they have witnessed this Jesus who worked such awesome miracles… completely undone through betrayal and lies. The priests and the elders… the religious leaders who had claimed the moral high ground again and again… these disciples had witnessed them lie and stir up false testimony. They saw them embrace the Roman state to have the power to work their will. They saw how the crowds turned away from the message of Jesus he had given them day after day in the Temple… and embrace the chaos and violence of Barabbas. They saw the detached brutality of the Romans who did not hesitate to nail Jesus to the cross. He meant nothing to them but a bit of distraction and sport while they mocked him.
One message of resurrection from Mary could not wipe away what they had witnessed with their own eyes. They were locked up in fear.
This week after the proclamation of resurrection on Easter Sunday… how many of us have been locked up in fear? Fear of the escalations of war spurred on by the unhinged words of the President? Fear of economic uncertainty as our bank balance is emptying out quicker than it has in the past. Fear stoked by social media and traditional media as it feeds on our peace of mind for profit?
For my family this week, we experienced the fear that came from the medical diagnosis we didn’t want to hear… the fear of what may lie ahead for our family.
What was your fear this week that locked you up… that stopped the message of resurrection life from filling you up? Maybe for some it wasn’t fear but loneliness that locked them up. Or being held in the tight grip of grief. Whatever it might be that locks the doors so you won’t be seen… heard… or found.
Year after year we proclaim the joy of the resurrection. Year after year we find ourselves locked up. Shut tight against that joy… trying to protect ourselves from a world that undoes us on a daily basis. Maybe then… it is no wonder that Christ… upon entering that locked room of ours… the entering resurrected Christ first speaks a word of peace. Peace be with you. Peace… not the fear as the world gives. The introduction of Christ’s peace is the start of the transformation… a transformation characterized by the resurrected life. In the story, he shows them all his wounds from the world. Wounds still visible on his body. Their wounds… our wounds… are perhaps not as easily seen as his are. This is the same Jesus. This is the same Jesus who underwent all the ordeals and violence of this world… violence meant to show this world’s power over him. Jesus underwent the worst of the world… he descended into hell… and now he has come to them with a gospel message that hasn’t changed from his experiences… hasn’t been tarnished or undone by the violence… hasn’t been coopted by some other thought or pursuit. He speaks peace to them. And in that word of peace, we know… we hear that commandment again. Peace be with you. Love one another. Love is life that cannot die.
And Jesus breathes on them… filling them with the Holy Spirit… filling them with the life breath of God. He shows them clearly the path forward out of fear and into their own resurrected life… words of truth meant to unlock their hearts… words that I think get lost year after year on this first Sunday after Easter… no matter how many times we read and hear this story. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Now some will hear those words and they will interpret them through the world’s power. They will hear the opportunity… the ability to keep others locked up in sin… a means… a way to have power over others. I am powerful. I am a gatekeeper. I can forgive or retain your sin. I have been given the power to arbitrate over eternal life or eternal death. But that interpretation does not lead to resurrection… it keeps us locked up in our fear. These words… accompanying the gift of the Holy Spirt… are the key Jesus puts in their hands to get them out of their own fear and into his peace. To turn these words into a weapon of power… to retain the sins of others is to… in effect… retain your own sin… your own division from one another… your own fear. We as Christians deceive ourselves when we retain the sins of others… when we don’t offer the same key… the same grace we were given… when we retain sins it is ourselves that we keep imprisoned in the dark… letting go of the light that is forgiveness and grace.
To forgive or to retain… which way will you follow? The way of Christ who forgave and set us free to new life in resurrection… or the way of the world that retains sins and tells us how we are to lord over one another… the rich over the poor… the powerful over the weak… the holy over the unholy. The way of the world keeps us divided so that the fear of death continues to hold power over us through our sin.
I feel like with all those awesome miracles that Jesus performed along the way… the most awesome were the ones where he forgave the sins of the people he encountered. Yes, the blind could see… and the deaf could hear… and the lame could walk… but forgiveness… forgiveness meant the dead were filled with the resurrection life. Forgiveness brought them out from whatever tomb they were in living dead within… and set them free to go into the world to love as they had experienced love in this Christ before them.
The locked room is the tomb in which these dead disciples now live. Not to be seen. Not to be heard. Not to be found.
And then there’s Thomas. I don’t like the caricature of Doubting Thomas. Grieving Thomas may be a better idea… because what Thomas shows is he is still locked up. His hope in Jesus was still dead. The world had crushed and killed his hope… again. He was still in his own tomb… surrounded by death… grieving. The disciples’ new tale of a seeing Jesus means as much to him as Mary’s… whom he didn’t believe either. He doesn’t listen to their calls to come out from his tomb.
And just like with the other disciples in this passage… Jesus meets him there. Not with scorn and scolding… but with the same peace. Peace be with you. The gospel message he gives to Thomas is the same he gave to the other disciples to whom he showed his hands and his side. And Thomas comes out from his tomb because the hope he had thought dead was alive. Thomas is given new birth into a living hope.
This is no fragile optimism… nor is it a denial of the pain we experience… it is a hope born of resurrection that endures the suffering… the trials and tribulations that come with our lives. It is a hope that is the genuineness of our faith. In the genuineness of our faith… we will still grieve… we will still fear… we will still become wounded and battered around… but these are not the last words. It is not our end. This is not to return us to our own tombs to live dead. Resurrection does not erase the scars of living. Resurrection transforms them into places where grace can be given… and received.
Thomas crying out, “My Lord and my God!” Some would read that as a bold confident statement of belief. Today, I’m hearing it as his grief cracking in two… the grief that sealed the tomb he was in cracking in two. This cry comes out of him as a sob of release. My Lord and my God! It is the cry of the newly born into resurrection life. His hope was dead but now it is alive forever and ever. With hope… with love… with peace… he can leave this locked room to be seen and heard… and found. Amen.