Title: Out of Hiding
Scripture: Isaiah 41:4b-13; John 20:19-31

**Sermons are meant to be heard, so listen along here**

 

https://www.facebook.com/RadiusChurchLA/videos/594623057355932/?pnref=story

Happy Easter!

No, I’m not a week behind – we’re still in Easter.
Yes, you’ve likely eaten most of your jelly beans, put away the few decorations you had out, eaten all the hard-boiled eggs and ham sandwiches, and maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ve stopped finding Easter Grass all over the place.  

Despite how over it we might be – it IS still Easter.
Easter isn’t just a day.  
It’s a whole season in the church.
And honestly, we need more than a day.
Easter is complicated, and sometimes hard to believe.
And as those kids reminded us, even those who experienced the first Easter had a hard time believing what was happening was really happening.  
They had seen it all.
The disciples saw Jesus on the cross.
They saw him placed into a tomb.
They knew there was no coming back from that.
And yet –
The tomb was empty – an angel met the women at the tomb and even told them, “Jesus is risen”
And still they had a hard time believing it.
Now don’t get me wrong, they WANTED to believe it – but an empty tomb can mean a lot more than someone rising from the dead.

In science there’s a rule called Occam’s Razor. It says that the most likely scenario is the true one.
In this case, Jesus being alive after they watched him die?  Doesn’t seem likely. The more likely scenario was someone moved the body, or had stolen it.  

So we come upon the disciples today – hiding in a locked room because they are afraid.
Even though they had heard from the women that Jesus was risen.
They were still hiding.
Fear is strong.
It’s powerful.
It can be stronger than the glimmer of hope that comes when they hear Jesus is risen.
But, despite their fear, despite the locked doors – Jesus comes in.
The one they thought was dead just appears.
The first thing Jesus says is “peace be with you” because what they are seeing is NOT how things are supposed to go.
People die.
That’s the way of the world.
They don’t come back.
Death wins.

The disciples, when they realize that it’s really happening – this isn’t a dream, it isn’t just words…that little bit of hope which had been glimmering under the fear springs out.
And they rejoice.
Because the simple act of Jesus being there means that death didn’t win, those words they had heard WERE in fact, true … and it changes everything.
And then there’s Thomas.
Poor Thomas.
Each and every year, the Sunday following Easter we hear about Thomas.  The one who didn’t quite buy it.
The one who wanted something more than words.
The disciples see Jesus, but Thomas isn’t there.  
We don’t know why.
We don’t know if he was with his family, or trying to figure out what to do with his life now that Jesus had been killed.

We do know he’s not in that upper room the first time Jesus appears.
And man, did he miss out.
The other disciples tell him all about seeing Jesus and he doesn’t believe it.
Thomas doesn’t have hope greater than his fear yet.
It’s maybe a little stronger than it was before the other disciples tell him their experience, but it’s not something he has seen for himself and he wants it.
Who can blame him?

Not me.
I’ve had my own Thomas moments.
I have shared this before but I remember laying on the dock at a cabin with a group of friends from high school and asking for a sign “God if you’re really up there, give me a sign” and immediately seeing a shooting star blaze across the sky.  And then thinking it was a fluke so asking again and getting it again.
Should I be forever called doubting Natalia?
Maybe.

What do you need to believe?
What would/did it take?
A miracle?
A shooting star?
A story of faith from someone else?

One might think that preaching each and every year on this Sunday after Easter I’d be sick of this story.  But I’m not.
Not at all.
In fact, I seem to love it more and more with each telling.
Because it’s my story.
I have come to the tomb, I have heard someone proclaim to me that the Lord is Risen and we sing and celebrate and rejoice but there is always a question or two that linger.
My life is still filled with What ifs and maybes
What I have come to love about Thomas is that he comes to faith – he gets to that place where he can boldly proclaim “my lord and my god” –
because he first has the chance to voice his doubt,
to ask his questions,
to not be afraid of what will happen because he doesn’t take the other guys at their word.
He expresses his doubt and then has an experience of God.  

And even afterwards – even after his great words of faith – I’m sure Thomas still had his moments.  
Where things didn’t seem so certain. Where his doubts and questions came roaring right back.  

And yet Thomas’s doubts don’t change the reality of Easter.
They don’t change anything that has happened.
The same is true for me and for you.
Our doubts and questions don’t change a thing.
Jesus has still risen.
Death still has not won.

Year after year, Thomas teaches me that faith and certainty are two different things.
I can believe and still have questions.
I can proclaim My Lord and My God and then question and wonder and doubt because it doesn’t change who I am, (a claimed child of God) and it doesn’t change what Christ has just done for me.

Jesus’ response to Thomas after his words of faith is for you and me and our lingering questions.  
The ones that never go away.
The ones that get answered but then create new more complicated questions.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” or another way to translate that is to say “blessed are those who have not seen and yet continue to believe.”
If you were here this Lent season you heard these moments.
Moments where people stood before us and shared their own moments where doubt and fear led to an experience of God.  

Blessed are we who have not seen, and yet continue to believe.

Easter was a week ago.
And today, today you may be like Thomas.
You might have proclaimed “He is risen indeed” with gusto last Sunday but are still full of questions and doubts today.
Or today you might be like the disciples – locked in a room, filled with anxiety and fear for the future.  Having heard about Jesus rising from the dead but the fear is still stronger than the hope that it might be true.  

But Easter is more than one day.  
And today is still Easter.
Today, this day, Jesus comes to you. To us.
Right here.
Right where we are.
In the middle of our locked rooms.
Into our questions and fears and doubts.  

And what does Jesus do when he comes in?

When he meets us here?
He says “Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

It’s time to stop hiding and go.

(Lydia sings Come Out of Hiding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFkDqQtfs0w at both services)