The God of Locked Doors 

Scripture: John 20: 19-21  

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹ Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  

The God of Locked Doors 

Our text begins on the evening of the Resurrection, acknowledging the grief and trauma that the disciples have carried in their lived experience. Truth is, hearing that the Savior of the world is alive after knowing the brutality of his death would be difficult to hear. This is actually more difficult because everyone knew that Jesus said he would be raised on the third day, which was the purpose of the guards being stationed at the tomb in the first place; but now the tomb is empty, the women have seen him, and no one knows where to find him. There were rumors floating around that the disciples had stolen his body to present the idea that he was alive, but even the disciples don’t know where Jesus is. They are hanging on the promise that he would meet them in Gallilee, like he had promised.   

How troubling? The idea of losing what you truly revere and having to wait to see if it is still here after all. The weight of having to believe others while wrestling with the doubt you are forced to live in. Yes, I could still be referring to the followers of the text, but the truth is that all of us have been in this place before. The place where the weight of our grief has clouded our ability to do the normalcy of our lives. The moments where we spend reliving the traumas of our yesterday, which impairs our ability to find peace and safety where we once had. The moments where grief clouds our reality long enough that we don’t know what the truth is. We know what this feels like, don’t we? The feeling of looking over your shoulder and hoping that the right someone is there after all. This is where the disciples are. 

Their savior has died and now they are finding themselves learning how to live without the one who taught them how to live. All the while, hearing now that the savior is back, but they don’t have access like they once did. They hear that Jesus has died through the words of the women who have journeyed alongside them, but they did not learn it on their own. Jesus sent word to the disciples to go back to Galilee, and he would meet them there. While they are waiting for Jesus to arrive, they find themselves in a room noting that the religious leaders were after the followers of Jesus. They were afraid of what society could do to them and what their fate would be. So, they locked the door.  

I think the dilemma is that beyond this door is the reality of something new and different. This door keeps them safe from the things that feel uncomfortable. This door keeps their enemies away. This door keeps them in their situation, while they wait for Jesus to come back. While looking at this text, I wonder what we have locked in or locked out of our lives due to the fear we are succumbing to. Maybe it’s the: 

• The Door of God Given Opportunities 

• The Door of God’s Healing 

• The Door of God’s Provision 

• The Door of God’s Direction 

• The Door of God’s Protection 

• The Door of God’s Manifestation 

And we may be missing what’s in the hallway of opportunity due to our fear of being on the wrong side of the locked door. They only locked the door because of their grief after losing their brother and friend. Their grief is no longer a distant reality, rather it is something that they have truly seen and experienced. They’re in this house because they are grieving and are still without a savior. Yes, the women have seen him, but grief doesn’t change because of their eyewitness testimony.  Someone else’s revelation or epiphany doesn’t change the fact that I still feel lost without the one I’ve lost. J. William Worden, a noted Grief Psychologist, would identify that the disciples are lost in the process of learning how to adjust to a world without their brother and friend. Despite having the testimony of Jesus’s return wouldn’t change the fact that they have to adjust to a reality different than their norm. The tension of the text is based on the recognition of how blessed the disciples were. The grief that they are carrying is so heavy as it is held in comparison to the lives they have lived with him. They have been privileged to walk beside Jesus for three years. From reading the gospels, we recognize how intimate their relationship to Jesus truly is.  

• We know the savior; they know him as a friend.  

• We know his power; they know his habits.  

• We know his character traits; they know his quirks.   

• We know his sermons; they know his voice.  

They knew him personally and their grief shows that they lost someone close to him 

So, I would argue that their grief locked the door.  While yes, it kept them safe from the religious leaders who were hunting them, I would argue it also put them in a space where they could hide amidst the clouded confusion that grief often brings us. So, I have a question for you.  

Who, or what, taught you to lock the door? 

Amid all life circumstances and the lessons learned along the way, what was the thing that taught you to lock the door? What happened? Where were you? What were you grieving? What did you lose?  Who were you running from? Who were you running to? Why was locking the door the best option? 

While these questions help us wrestle with our reality, they don’t strip us of our ability to hope beyond the locked door. We may think that locking the door is often the best option for us, it often just creates an opportunity for God to be creative amid our fear. Because the text doesn’t tell us that Jesus knocked on the door, it tells us that Jesus appeared among them. The text does not tell us how long Jesus was there while they were afraid before he said peace. I wonder how long he was there. Did he sit among them while they were afraid? Did they cry? Did he cry with them? How long did they feel alone, while in his presence? How long was he there with him, without them knowing? Too often we take for granted the presence of the one who is always there, even when we have done everything in our power to be alone. God’s omnipresence is the reminder that even when we think God is not present, God is still there. Even in those moments where we feel like we are all alone, God is there. Thus, we know this because the blessing of this text is that the locked door doesn’t prevent them from receiving their blessing because Jesus goes beyond locked doors. Jesus does for the disciples what he often does for us, which is showing up in the moments where we least expect him, but need him most.   

Jesus does something both bold and important in the text. Jesus, amid their greatest anxiety, calls for peace. Jesus doesn’t call for the kind of peace that is the absence of chaos but rather the peace that is present amid all the things that are going wrong. Jesus recognizes that they are grieving and they have had a major shift in their lives. Jesus doesn’t disregard their grief, because he recognizes that though the savior has risen, that does not make their grief disappear. The heaviest part of grief is not just the loss, but the change that accompanies it. They recognized the fullness of Jesus’s power before his crucifixion and are puzzled by the reality that they can lose Jesus again because they lost him in his crucifixion. So, even in his presence of the chaos of their grief, he calls for peace.  

I like how Jesus grants them his peace. Jesus knows that the disciples only know the story of how he died, so he gives them the opportunity to bear witness to his death since they were not at the cross for the moment.  Jesus shows them his hands and shows them his side. He proves that he really is all of what he said he is. He proved that despite what society thinks, he is still in control. This is why locked doors can’t keep God out. It is because God taught the door how to be locked.  God put the locking function in the door. And if God put the lock in the door, God knows the ways to get beyond the limitations that he helped us manufacture. Thus, we have to consider that Jesus is the source of our peace.  

• He brings us peace behind the locked doors of disparity 

• He brings us peace behind the locked doors of discrimination 

• He brings us peace behind the locked doors of grief 

• He brings us peace behind the locked doors of trauma 

• He brings us peace behind the locked doors of injustice. 

• He brings us peace behind the locked doors of oppression. 

• He brings us peace behind the locked doors of fear. 

• He brings us peace behind the locked doors of anxiety. 

• He brings us peace behind the locked doors of uncertainty. 

• He brings us peace behind the locked doors of broken systems. 

• He brings us peace behind the locked doors of silence. 

• He brings us peace behind the locked doors of invisibility. 

• He brings us peace behind the locked doors of rejection. 

So, I thank God for His peace.  I thank God for the locked doors that didn’t keep us apart but drew me closer to Him. I thank God for the locked doors that held us together when everything was trying to pull us apart. I thank God for the locked doors that shaped me, stretched me, and made me into who He is calling me to be.