The Upper Room

Preaching on John 20:19-31

Our story begins with Mary of Clopas and Mary Magdalene, as they came flinging themselves into the upper room where the disciples were cowering, and started shouting over one another about an earthquake and an angel, and their revelatory encounter with the risen Jesus. I assume that no one believed them.

I picture the Upper Room shrouded in a miasma, filled with a grim listlessness, a pallid cloud draining the vitality from anyone who might enter.

I don’t believe that Mary Magdalene and Mary of Clopas – even with the news that they had seen Jesus alive and risen from the grave – could penetrate that veil.

The disciples are traumatized. They’d seen a friend and mentor executed.

They’re ashamed. They had run from the cross, and abandoned Jesus to face his ultimate end on his own. They denied that they knew him. Throughout their time together, they’d imagined their boldness in the face of persecutions, and in the end, they pretended Jesus meant nothing to them, and that their work had never existed.

Quietly, they are horrified at the implications of how Jesus’ mission had ended. Is this how he had intended for things to go? Was this his vision? Why?

They are aware that they are in danger. There are no shortage of crosses, and Jesus’ enemies won’t be seriously fooled by their claims not to know him. They are aware that they may soon have Good Fridays of their own.

They are alone. In the past, when they ended up in scrapes, Jesus got them out. If he were here, he’d say something inscrutable, or do something impossible, or charm someone with unexpected wisdom. What were they supposed to do without him?

They don’t have purpose. Only a couple of years ago, they had left families and work in order to walk with Jesus, and to participate in the incoming of the Kingdom of God with him. Now all of that had evaporated and Jesus was gone.

There is a miasma around them. They are listless, and surrounded by a pallid cloud draining their vitality.

Mary of Clopas and Mary Magdalene come running – as fast as they can – with news that will change the world. I don’t know how the disciples respond. Disbelief? I can imagine a gentle and misogynistic soothing of what seems like hysteria. Maybe anger?

But how could any of it possibly penetrate that veil?

*

I wonder to what extent the news of the resurrection has penetrated into our lives this week.

We are still experiencing some of the same purposelessness, loneliness, the same danger, perhaps some of the same shame and horror. We might have a miasma too.

We hear the call of those shouting over one another about a revelatory encounter that is fundamentally changing the world. We hear the invitation to be a part of that transformation, to live it out and to mold ourselves by its implications.

To what extent does that news actually penetrate into our lives this year?

Just as the disciples shut themselves into their little upper room, in order to reduce the risk of retribution for their association with the crucified prophet, knowing that Jerusalem and Roman elites are working to ensure that simmering tensions don’t erupt into a boil by permanently eradicating Jesus’ movement, we too are shut into our homes. The doors are locked. We are aware that it is risky outside, for us and for others.

And so, we are still shut off from the world.

And just as the disciples do their best to honour the Sabbath rest and the Passover hope amidst all the tumult that is surrounding them, and do their best to discern Jesus’ vision and intentions, we are doing our best to practice our faith as well. We are trying to pray, and practice mindfulness, we are drawing out sidewalk-chalk hope and baking sacramental sourdough. Sometimes it even goes well, but that is punctuated by news-binges, or procrastination, or being disconnected or cranky with the ones we love. We struggle to find an appropriate internal stance, and alternate between coping and cultivating genuine goodness.

And so, we are still struggling to connect to the sacred.

And we are still hurting. Just as the disciples are wounded, no cheap or facile optimism will alleviate the concern that we have for ourselves and for those around us. There is suffering. We’re resentful of the glib and cheerful suggestion that we might wave our arms, and all will be well. We want a resurrection that doesn’t pretend that what we’re experiencing isn’t happening. We need a resurrection that doesn’t erase our scars.

We are still genuinely suffering.

We hear voices shouting over one another that the world has changed for the better. I wonder to what extent those voices are actually able to penetrate our lives this week.

*

It is good, perhaps, that Jesus comes to the disciples and shows them the wounds in his sides from being pierced with a guard’s spear. Perhaps it is good that, even in the resurrection, he is still marked with the nails of the cross.

We picture him glowing, in bleached-white garments, with freshly-conditioned hair, striding transcendently into the disciples’ lives. Instead, he comes still broken from his experience of torture, still incarnate and empathizing with the wounded of the earth, still working on building a new world here. Instead, he invites his friends to touch his wounded places and to share their own. He allows them to enter his experience of pain.

It is good then, perhaps, that while Jesus says it would be nice to believe in his resurrection without having seen it, to be able to practice our faith with resilience amidst disaster, he comes to Mary Magdalene and Mary of Clopas as they prepare his body for burial, he comes to the disciples as they sit in their miasma, he comes to Thomas, even as Thomas declares he won’t ever believe in it.

We imagine that we have to be good, and contribute meaningfully to our community, and read a lot, and cultivate sacredness in our daily lives. We imagine there is no way the resurrection is meant for those who struggle as much as we do. Instead, Jesus comes to Thomas, and the others, patiently, again and again, in their struggle, even though they aren’t special or sacred, because they are ordinary human beings having ordinary reactions.

It is good, perhaps, that Jesus somehow slips through thick walls and locked doors. We imagined we had created an isolated place, that the walls that we built for security but that had become imprisoning, were impenetrable. Instead, Jesus comes slipping through.

Instead, Jesus comes to the disbelieving disciples in their genuine suffering, in the miasma of their locked room, and he gives them gifts.

Peace be with you, he says

I am giving you the Holy Spirit, he says – from dancing over the waters in the beginning, through God breathing life into each living thing, to the dove of peace and the flame of prophecy, to you. To empower you and to be your advocate. I am giving you the Spirit.

And I am sending you out, he says. As the creator sent me, so I send you.

*

As the creator sent me, he says, so I send you.

I wonder how we take up that invitation.

I believe that we are being invited to show our wounds. Are we able to let our friends touch the place in our side where our pain took place? Are we willing to emerge transformed and then channel our experience back into tending to this world? Are we willing not to transcend it? Are we willing to sit in pain together?

I believe that we are being invited to work with other ordinary people. Are we willing to go, again and again, to those who are trying, but are struggling to pull off that which we’re trying to do together?

I believe that we are being invited to break through the walls of our friend’s fear and shame and purposelessness, to enter in with a word of peace and with gifts of love.

And there is the bigger picture. Just four months ago, in a manger in a stable in a small town in the backwaters of Roman Palestine two-thousand years ago, a child was born who was God dwelling among God’s people, an incarnate sanctuary to the divine, an embodied place where the cosmic and the ordinary could coexist.

As the Creator sent me, Jesus says. I believe that we are being invited to be that sanctuary. Jesus says: I am sending you out. Peace be with you. And: I am giving you the Holy Spirit.

I believe that the push and pull of our lived-relationship with the Spirit, which has been present since the very beginning and is newly sent out by Jesus’ commissioning, enables us to concretely embody the incarnation of God among human beings. Through us, Jesus – as the incarnation of the divine in the world – lives again and lives on.

That coexistence is still readily present and possible. We don’t need to go out looking for the Spirit, we don’t need to become better, so that when the Spirit comes, we will be ready. It was present from the beginning, breathed into each of us, and then sent out by Jesus. It is here already. We already have all that we need.

When we experience a veil, or a miasma, or cultivate walls around us, or are disconnected from the spiritual world, and we wonder whether it would ever be possible for the resurrection, carried by those shouting over one another, to penetrate.

Again and again, we are already living out Christ’s incarnation in this place. Resurection doesn’t need to penetrate our veil. It is already here.