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The Living Lord Jesus Christ, who demonstrated His power
over life and death by laying down His life on the cross and taking it up again
in His resurrection, has the power to transform lives. Some of you know that
from personal experience. You can sing of His amazing grace – how sweet the
sound! – that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now I’m found, was
blind but now I see! We see it over and over again in Scripture as well. The
Risen Christ changes people’s lives! We saw it happen with Mary Magdalene in
our text last Sunday. She was transformed from despair to delight by her
encounter with the Living Lord. We see it again today in our text, as the
disciples of Christ are transformed from fear to joy when they meet Him.
The Christian life is not always a happy life. Nowhere in
Scripture is perpetual happiness promised to the follower of Christ in this
fallen world. Happiness is a condition of heart and mind that is to a large
degree dependent on our ever-changing circumstances. Because this world and the
human race have been radically corrupted by the deadly and destructive effects
of sin, our happiness in this world is always somewhat fleeting and often
punctuated with grief, suffering, and sorrow. There is coming a day for the
child of God when there will be no more tears, death, mourning, crying, or
pain, but that day is not now. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:19, “If we have
hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” In
other words, if the best that we have to look forward to are conditions here
and now, then our faith and our hopes are hollow and bankrupt. There must be
something better to come later – a happiness that is permanent and indestructible
– but it is not here, and it is not now.
Though happiness may often elude us in this life, there is
something better which is promised to the follower of Christ here and now. We
have the offer and promise of joy. Whereas happiness is dependent upon our
ever-changing circumstances, joy is anchored in the unchangeable reality of our
personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus. It is that deep-seated
assurance that, in spite of our circumstances and every outlying external
variable, within our hearts and souls, all is well. We can have unshakable joy
even when life is not going as we had planned, or when sin, suffering, or
sorrow break in and wreak havoc on our happiness. All is well because we rest
contentedly in our relationship with God-in-Christ.
If joy is the assurance that all is well, then it’s opposite
is not (as some would suppose) sorrow, grief, or sadness. The unsettled
suspicion that all is not well is something we call fear. Fear in a Christian’s life causes us to lose sight of the fact
that we are inseparably tethered to God by faith in Christ, and that He has
promised us victory, comfort, and joy. We can lose sight of the joy that is
ours in the Lord when we are overcome by fear, and that is what makes fear so
dangerous within the life of the Christian. It has happened to most of us, I
suppose, at one time or another. And it happened to the disciples of Jesus
after His crucifixion. That is how we find them in our text. Having walked with
Jesus in the fullness of joy for three-plus years, their Lord and Master had
been taken from them, nailed to a cross, and buried in a tomb. Three days
later, we find His followers huddled together behind locked doors. Why? The
Bible says, “for fear of the Jews” (v19).
Why this fear? The authorities had seized and killed Jesus,
so they could not help thinking that the crosshairs would fall upon Jesus’
followers next. Besides this, a story had already begun to circulate that the
disciples had stolen Jesus’ body (Mt 28:11-15). It is understandable that they
would fear repercussions from the authorities, and that fear had put them
behind multiple locked doors in isolation from the world. The Bible says that
the fear of man brings a snare (Prov 29:25), and here we find these disciples
trapped on the inside of a prison of their own making. The Psalmist said, “The
Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” (Psa 27:1). But with
their Lord dead and buried, fear cast its dark shadow over them, imprisoning them
behind locked doors.
If we are honest, we know how it feels. We have been paralyzed
by fear and locked in its fortress. Fear leaves us feeling weak and defeated,
but the Bible says that joy of the Lord is our strength (Neh 8:10). So how do
we turn from fear to joy? Let us see how an encounter with the Living Lord
Jesus transformed His disciples from fear to joy, and ask Him to do the same
for us.
I. We must recognize the Lord’s presence (v19)
Fear can keep us isolated from a lot of things, but it
cannot keep the Lord away from us. That is what the disciples discovered behind
their locked doors. In an effort to seal themselves off from anyone and
everyone else, they found that locked doors were ineffective at keeping the
Risen Lord Jesus away. The Bible says here that while they were shut in behind
those locked doors, “Jesus came and stood in their midst.”
This brief statement has given rise to all sorts of
speculative theories about how this happened. Did He just walk through the
walls or doors? Did He miraculously pick the lock? Did He just appear? We have
to confess that we do not know, and the detail must not be important, for we
are not told. But His coming to them, in whatever manner it happened, was
definitely miraculous. There is no natural explanation for how He came into
their midst. However it happened, it was supernatural. The simple fact is that
no matter how hard we try to lock ourselves away in the isolation of fear, we
cannot keep the Lord out.
That is an important thing for us to recognize. In our fear,
He is with us nonetheless. And if He is with us, then we have no reason to fear
anything that man might do to us or that may befall us in this world. Early in
Church History, one of the heroic defenders of the Christian faith was
Athanasius of Alexandria. During Athanasius’ lifetime, a heresy known as Arianism
was sweeping across the Roman Empire . Arianism
derived its name from Arius, who taught that Jesus was not fully God. Even
though Arius was declared a heretic and sent into exile following the Council
of Nicaea in 325 AD, his teachings continued to hold sway, at times threatening
to eclipse every church in the Empire. But Athanasius continued to hold fast to
the Word of God and declare its truth about the divine nature of Jesus Christ,
at times almost singlehandedly. One of his colleagues once said to him, out of
genuine concern, “The whole world is against you!” Athanasius famously replied,
“Then it is Athanasius contra mundum,”
or “Athanasius against the world.” Athanasius took courage from his recognition
that, even if the whole world was against him, the Lord was with him. And
anytime we are on the side of the Lord, it does not matter how many antagonists
we have or how fierce our opposition may be.
Friends, there are unsettling trends at work in the world
today. The pressure is on the Church
of Jesus Christ Moore said, “On the wrong side of history? We
started on the wrong side of history—a Roman Empire
and a cross. Rome ’s
dead and Jesus is fine.”[1] Even
when we are contra mundum – against
the whole world (or as the case may be, the whole world being against us) – we
need not fear, for this Risen Lord is with us!
If we would move from fear to joy, we must recognize that
our Lord is with us, even when we find ourselves reeling against the world’s
pressures and tempted to lock ourselves away in fearful isolation. We need not
do that, and we need not be fearful. We need to recognize the Lord’s presence.
Now secondly, as we move from fear to joy …
II. We must receive the Lord’s peace (vv19, 21).
In many parts of the world today, it is customary to greet
another with a message of peace. The origins of that practice are quite
ancient. In Hebrew, the customary greeting is Shalom Alechem. It means “Peace to all.” And the response is Alechem Shalom, “to all, peace.” That is
how Jesus addressed the disciples when He came into their midst. He says,
“Peace be with you.” In fact, He says it twice (vv19, 21). But Jesus wasn’t
just exchanging customary pleasantries. This was a specific message to a group
of terrified disciples in effort to bring them out of the hiding place of fear
and into the fullness of joy.
It may have been a surprising salutation, considering the
events that had preceded it. They may have well expected a word of rebuke
instead of a word of peace! After all, they had all abandoned and forsaken Him
following His arrest in the Garden
of Gethsemane
And this is how He comes to us in our times of paralyzing
fear as well. He comes speaking peace. Previously, He had said, “Peace I leave
with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do
not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful” (14:27). His peace is
the remedy for the fear that would otherwise grip the hearts of His followers.
Remember that occasion in Mark 4, when the bewildered
disciples were frightened as their boat encountered a terrifying storm on the Sea of Galilee . The Bible says that Jesus rebuked the
wind and said to the sea, “Peace, be still” (Mk 4:39, KJV). At the speaking of
His peace, the storm subsided immediately, and a great calm came over the sea.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Lord Jesus always spoke peace to the storms
that come our way and cause us to fear? But He does not always speak peace to
the storm. More often, in fact, He speaks to us rather than to our circumstances. And what He says to us is the same: “Peace, be still.”
And at the sound of His word, a calm comes across us, even if the storm
continues to rage on.
If we would move from fear to joy, we must recognize that
the Lord is with us in our bewildering circumstances, and we must receive His
peace. The speaking of peace to His disciples in the upper room did not make
all opposition and intimidation disappear. Rather, in time, that opposition
only intensified, and eventually cost these disciples their very lives. But
even in the face of those fiery trials, the disciples of Christ stood steadfast
by faith in Him, because in their hearts, they had received His peace which
overcame their fears. He will do the same for us if we will but receive His
peace.
Now, we find here a third step on the journey from fear to
joy.
III. We must realize the Lord’s power (v20).
Repeatedly over the course of three years the disciples had
witnessed the unparalleled power of Jesus Christ. Through His miracles, He had
demonstrated power over nature, power over sickness, power over demons, power
over sin, and even power over death. But when He Himself died, they felt that His
power had been defeated fully and finally. While He was alive, they did not
fear as long as He was with them. But now that He was gone, they retreated in
fear. If their all-powerful Lord and Master could be executed in such a
shameful and humiliating way, what hope could they have against the same forces
of evil in the world? They had seen Him raise others from death, but at this
moment, they had seemingly forgotten that He had said often that He would rise
even from death.
When Jesus appeared in their midst, it is hard to know what
they imagined to be happening. When He came to them walking upon the stormy
sea, they had thought they were seeing a ghost of some kind. Did they even
recognize Him now? It was often the case that when people saw Jesus after the
resurrection, they did not know it was Him. We saw that in the account of Mary
Magdalene in the previous passage. She supposed Him to be the gardener. We
don’t know if the disciples recognized Him here and now or not, but even if
they had, how could they explain that One who had been dead was now alive and
in their midst?
Jesus, sensing their confusion and dismay, “showed them both
His hands and His side.” He showed them the places where the nails had been and
where the spear had been thrust into His side. In what may be a parallel
account in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus says to the disciples, “See My hands and My
feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh
and bones as you see that I have” (Lk 24:39). It was really Him, alive after
being dead! This could only mean one thing! Jesus has overcome! He has rendered
death powerless and risen in victory over it! The sin that He had borne in His
death had been conquered and its penalty defeated for all who trust in Him.
What else is there to fear on the earth, if sin and death have been overcome by
the power of Jesus? If the tomb could not hold the unstoppable power of Jesus,
then why should those who walk by faith in Him bar themselves behind locked
doors?
Friends, there would be much to fear in this world if it
were not for the fact that the greatest dangers have been defeated by the power
of Jesus! Will we fear a culture that is bent on distorting our message or
defying our values? Will we fear governing authorities who seek to legislate us
into silence? Will we fear those who commit acts of terror in the name of false
gods and false prophets? We serve a risen Savior who stands in victorious
power, demonstrating the wounds He bore for our redemption! What can man do to
us? The worst thing that can happen to us in this world is death, and our
Redeemer has power even over death. The writer of Hebrews declares that He has
rendered powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, that He
might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their
lives (Heb 2:15). We stand in the promise of His victory, that we are more than
conquerors through Him, over tribulation, distress, persecution, famine,
nakedness, peril or sword. We have the assurance that neither death nor life,
nor angels nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to
separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:35-39).
Where in that equation does fear enter in?
The Bible says that when Jesus showed them His hands and His
side, “the disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” Jesus had told
them, “you will grieve, but your grief will be turned to joy” (Jn 16:20). Like
the disciples of Jesus, when we behold the fact that Christ has conquered death
on our behalf, and stands in victory over it, and we realize His unstoppable,
undefeatable power, we will move from fear to joy!
The journey from fear to joy was almost complete for them.
They had recognized His presence and received His peace. They had realized His
power. And one thing remained for the journey to be complete.
IV. We must resume the Lord’s purpose (vv21-23)
The Lord Jesus came into the world for a specific purpose
and to engage in a specific mission. He says that He has come to call sinners
to repentance (Mk 2:17). He says that He came to seek and to save that which is
lost (Lk 19:10). He says that He came to give His life as a ransom for many (Mt
20:28). When He laid down His life as that ransom on the cross, He said with a
dying breath, “It is finished.” He had accomplished all that He came to do. But
in His resurrection appearances to His disciples, Jesus commissioned those who
follow Him by faith to pick up His mission and resume it until all nations to
the ends of the earth have heard the Good News of what He has done for the
human race and had the opportunity to repent and believe. Our mission – the
mission of the church
of Jesus Christ
We call it the Great Commission. He said it over and over
again, as the accounts of the Gospels and Acts indicate. On this occasion, when
He appeared in the midst of His disciples, He said to them, “As the Father has
sent Me, I also send You.” The commission applies to every believer in Christ.
We are commissioned to carry out and continue His mission of redemption in the
world. But surely that is too daunting a task for us! How unfair of Jesus to
bring His disciples from fear to joy, only to fill them with fear again! Ah,
but there is no need to fear, for He promises us His resources for His mission.
Verse 22 says that after He had commissioned them, He
“breathed on them.” It is important to note that the words “on them” do not
occur in the Greek New Testament. Quite literally, He breathed out. And as He
breathed out, He said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Now, was He imparting the
Holy Spirit upon them here at that moment? If so, why did they again need to
receive the Holy Spirit fifty days later at Pentecost? No, Jesus was not
breathing the Holy Spirit into them. Rather, He was symbolizing what the Holy
Spirit would do when He came. He would come upon the disciples as the very
life-giving breath of God, giving them a power that is not their own – the very
power of God – to infill them and enable them to carry out the mission of
Christ. Interestingly, in both Hebrew and Greek (the original languages of the
Old and New Testament, respectively), the word is the same for Spirit, wind,
and breath. So Jesus is saying that the Holy Spirit will come upon them even as
God Himself had breathed life into Adam at creation, and even as the wind had
blown across the skeletons in Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones,
bringing them to life. So, later, when Jesus ascended into heaven, He would
remind them again of the coming of the Spirit. He said, “You will be baptized
with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. … You will receive power when the
Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem , and in all Judea, and Samaria , and even to the remotest part of the
earth” (Ac 1:4-8).
As His witnesses, we go into all the world fearlessly and
with great joy, making known to the world how the greatest problem that any
person could ever have has been remedied in Jesus Christ. He says, “If you
forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the
sins of any, they have been retained.” We
have to understand that only God can forgive sins. Jesus isn’t calling us to go
out just picking and choosing who can be forgiven and who cannot. Rather, as we
witness to Him, empowered by the Holy Spirit, the gospel of Jesus Christ goes
forth into the world inviting all who hear it to turn to Him that their sins
may be forgiven. The sharing of the Gospel is the announcement that all that
was necessary for our sins to be washed away and for us to be reconciled to God
has been done for us by Jesus Christ through His sinless life, His sacrificial
death, and His victorious resurrection! We are not the ones who forgive sin,
but who announce to the world that their sins can be forgiven if they will but
turn to Him and trust in Him! Thus Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 that the God
who reconciled us to Himself through Christ has given us the ministry of
reconciliation, “namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to
Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us
the word of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:18-19).
The most unstoppable force in the world today is the power
of the Holy Spirit moving upon the hearts of men and women as the Gospel of
Jesus Christ is proclaimed through the mouths of His people. And that mission
and message has been entrusted to us who live and walk by faith in Him.
Therefore, our lives are not meaningless or insignificant. Rather, as Paul
says, “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal
through us.” And that appeal is this: “We beg you on behalf of Christ, be
reconciled to God!” We can, because He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on
our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor
5:20-21).
When we proclaim that message in joy and without fear, it is
as though the Lord Jesus holds forth His nail-pierced hands through our words,
reaching with outstretched love toward a world that is lost and perishing in
sin, inviting them to come to Him and be forgiven. And there is no greater joy
to be found in this world than the joy of being used by the Lord to bear that
message to a world that desperately needs to hear it!
Christian, are you living in fear? Has the fear of your
life’s circumstances or the conditions of this fallen world caused you to
retreat behind locked doors? That fear is robbing you of the joy that is freely
yours through Jesus Christ. If you will but recognize His presence, receive His
peace, realize His power, and resume His purpose, that fear will be swallowed
up by the overwhelming joy that will flood your life as you walk with Him and
yield yourself to the indwelling power of His indwelling Holy Spirit. The joy
of the Lord will be your strength that pushes you beyond the barricades of fear
and sends you forth into the world on mission for Him.
The Bible says that splendor and majesty are before Him,
strength and joy are in His place (1 Chron 16:27). If you do not know Him,
though you may experience momentary happiness in the midst of the world’s
sorrows and life’s frustrations, you can never know the strength and joy of
Jesus until you come to Him by repentance of your sins and faith that He is the
Lord who can save you. In exchange for your fears of life and death, He offers
you joy. Find joy in Him, for you can find it nowhere else.
[1] https://twitter.com/drmoore/status/614442188869517312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw.
Accessed April 6, 2016.
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