Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary
John’s gospel reports four post-resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples. Mary is the first to meet the risen Lord; she does not know him until he speaks her name. The fourth appearance is on the lakeshore, where some disciples have been fishing (Jn 21). The second and third appearances are both recounted in today’s gospel text, John 20:19-31. On Easter evening, Jesus suddenly stands among the disciples, who hide behind locked doors. Later, the disciples say to Thomas, who was not present at the time, “We have seen the Lord!” Thomas cannot bring himself to believe it. Eight days later, Jesus appears again; and this time, Thomas experiences directly the presence of the one crucified and risen: “My Lord, and my God!” This is the Easter 2 gospel text all three years of the lectionary cycle. Familiar texts are often difficult to preach, year on year. Yet, a well-known text gives us latitude; it invites us to shift our listeners’ angle of vision and, with them, discover something new.
One might begin by peeling away the time-worn label routinely slapped on Thomas: “doubting” Thomas. The other disciples doubted, too. When they exclaim to Thomas, “we have seen the Lord!” they echo precisely what Mary declared to them early Easter morning. If they were persuaded at all by her testimony, they weren’t persuaded enough to take to the streets and spread the news. Jesus finds them in lockdown. When Thomas says he needs sight and touch before he can trust that his crucified Lord lives, he asks no more, really, than has been granted to the others: the presence of the living Lord. If we treat Jesus’ Easter evening visit as little more than a set-up to spotlight Thomas’s “shameful” skepticism, we can miss three profoundly significant actions on Jesus’ part that have forever shaped the church’s understanding of its identity and mission.
First, the risen Lord comes to his fearful, locked-in disciples and declares: “Peace be with you.” Two millennia later, in many parts of the world Christians do not face death threats; yet churches still fear the “otherness” of the world outside their doors. Buildings and signs, dress codes and music signal who will feel comfortable in our houses of worship. There are questions we do not want asked, experiences of God that threaten us. Yet, wrapping ourselves in cozy homogeneity is a poor substitute for Christ’s peace. That Easter evening, Jesus repeats his message: “Peace”—but it proves to be a peace meant to blow open the doors and send his disciples on a bold mission in his name.
Second, Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit into them. Often called “the little Pentecost,” this outpouring of Spirit is brief but profound; it recalls the breath of God that made humans “living spirits” (Gn 2:7). For John, this post-resurrection out-breathing and in-breathing of Spirit signify the disciples’ rebirth into a new reality. The peace of the risen Lord unlocks the doors that separate us from the world; God’s outpoured Spirit is the new-creating, living force that disrupts and transforms the world.
Third, Jesus makes grappling with sin (forgiving sin, or refusing too readily to dismiss it) central to the church’s mission. Like the Word who dwelled among us, full of grace and truth, we prioritize bringing forgiveness and liberation to those shackled by sin—their own, or that of others, with its myriad toxic effects. Second, we dare to confront the sins of self-serving leaders who wield power manipulatively in every arena of life—political, financial, juridical, social and spiritual. The work of new creation is filled with risk; but Jesus has given us all we need. It’s time to throw open the door.
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