The Parkside Neighborhood Watch is a volunteer group of residents paroling the streets to keep people safe. Their latest bulletin featured stories about a dozen cars being broken into because they were not locked. The message was simple, lock your doors, observe and report anything suspicious.Well the disciples were acting a little suspicious. News comes to them that Jesus is alive and instead of everyone bolting with glee to the tomb we find our faithful paralyzed in their sandals. Locked behind closed doors. Why didn't they go looking for him?
Sometimes we tend to lock ourselves in. We refuse to go out because we're too ashamed, too blue, or too afraid we will run into someone and, frankly, we can't stand the thought. Sometimes we stay away from even church for the same reason.
Shame and fear are cousins. First cousins. If you are ashamed of something that is known already, you are afraid of being seen by people in whose eyes you will catch flickers of disapproval. If you are ashamed of something people do not yet know about, you are afraid that just by being out and about in public, someone will discover it, and it scares you half to death. For every last one of us, there are things we have done whose discovery we fear.
All of us have closets in our hearts, little chambers into which we toss the shameful things we've done and the shameful things we think we are that make us feel unworthy. We toss them all in the closet and lock the door so that what people can see is just the neat and tidy and orderly living rooms of our lives. But like the disciples, we fear that someone might inadvertently open the wrong door, and out our shame will tumble for all to see.
The disciples were ashamed of what they had done, they were ashamed of what their cowardice revealed about who they simply were as men. So they locked the door, telling them they were keeping the Jews out when really they were maybe keeping themselves locked in. But then Jesus did what he always does for anyone locked up in his own shame: he comes in anyway. He enters the room, he enters the heart, and he breaks into the shame.
Jesus says "Shalom." He speaks a word that is the opposite of fear and so squelches shame, puts away and banishes any thoughts the disciples may have had about Jesus' bearing a grudge. He was not out to settle any old scores but to create a whole new situation.
Jesus breathes the sweetness of the Holy Spirit upon us as we pray and reflect:
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock." (John 20:19).
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who are too afraid, too ashamed or too paralyzed by this or that feature of their life, the lock won't stop Jesus. He will appear right in the middle of our locked-up heart and before you even have the chance to say or do a blessed thing, he will say "Peace to you!"
