But even a locked door cannot keep some things out.
No matter where the disciples went their lingering guilt and
a sense of failure and shame must have slunk along with them.
The door was locked against the troubles of the world
but the disciples remained bedeviled inside their shuttered hearts.

"I have seen the Lord," Mary Magdalene had proclaimed to them
at first light that very morning. Was that a good thing?
Jesus, their friend and teacher had been taken and killed.
Now He was back.

What might this Risen Lord have in mind for them this day?
Was this the Day of Judgement, the end of the world?
Was this the day of their judgement, the end of their lives?

They knew full well what they had done in the last few days.
The story would later be told in different ways by different voices but in the quiet
of their fearful hearts they could recall some unflattering and damning scenes.

In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus asked them to stay awake and pray with Him.
They fell asleep. One of the disciples, Judas, had betrayed the master, the fellowship, and the vision of God's kingdom - trading it all for a handful of coins.
Worse yet, he sealed it with a kiss - a symbol of greeting and friendship.

Peter for all his bluster about loyalty had denied that he even knew Jesus when the chips were down. James and John had lobbied Jesus for positions on his right and left hand but elected to pursue a different office as Jesus ascended Golgotha as the King of the Jews. Two thieves were on either side of Jesus when he died.
The rest of the disciples' whereabouts are not even mentioned. They seem to have melted away very early in the time of trouble.

"I have seen the Lord," Mary announced, early in the morning,
and by nightfall the disciples had locked the door.
Did they want to see Jesus after all that they had done or failed to do?
There are many ways to explain the fear they felt..

Neither sin nor death could overcome Christ.
Instead He conquered them by dying on the cross.
A locked door was certainly no obstacle to His arrival.
Nor were the disciples' sins of omission and commission a barrier to His forgiveness. "Peace be with you," Jesus said, not once, as was the customary greeting,
but twice so that they would truly hear Him. He showed them the signs of his suffering, the marks by which He could be recognized, woundings in which they had tacitly participated, and still he offered them peace.

The Gospel according to John has been called a record of the works of Jesus, whose purpose is to create faith, leading to life. Jesus, in the locked room,
breathed divine energy over the chaos of the disciples' watery fear.
And dry land began to emerge; a solid place on which to stand.
The Holy Spirit moved over the face of the disciples and new life began to spring forth.
"As the Father has sent me, so I send you," Jesus said. It was better than very good, and it was evening, the first day of the week - a brand new start.

The sin of the disciples had held them constrained in a life smaller than the darkened room. But that was a dwelling to small to contain the re-created disciples. Jesus released them with beath and divine energy: the Holy Spirit.

Now they too held the ability to unbind others, to free them from the weight of guilt and the oppression of things remembered but unresolved. We are the heirs of this power. "The peace of the Lord be always with you" is an unbinding, not just a greeting.

Thomas may have heard Mary's morning proclamation,
but he missed the evening unbinding.
Hearing the story from others was not enough to free him.
A week later the disciples, with Thomas among them,
were gathered in the same room again.

It says that the door was shut. It very clearly does not say that the door was locked.
The disciples had loosened up. Thomas remained bound in his uncertainly and clear about the nature of the proof he thought he needed.
The disciples had been surprised into a new and more open way of being.
Thomas remained locked.

The door to the room remained shut, but Jesus came to unlock Thomas.
"Do not doubt, but believe," Jesus said.
Or as one translation has it, "Do not be faithless, but believe."
Jesus offered His body. But Thomas received His spirit.
There was no need to touch the wounded flesh, the words and the presence were enough.
Thomas saw and he believed.

Some receive divine energy from hearing and some from sight. Some receive this divine energy by facing head on the wounds of the world and seeing the face of Christ on the broken bodies of others. The Holy Spirit can be found in Word and sacrament, worship and fellowship. But to paraphrase Carlyle:"What this parish needs, what all parishes need, are [people] who know God at more than second hand.

This is our work, whatever our profession. Christ will come even if we lock the door. But it is we who must profess "my Lord and my God". In that acceptance is our unbinding, the giving of divine energy and the opportunity to proclaim the unbinding of others.

Uncertainty in no sin. Doubt can be the catalyst that drives one to plow deeper and thereby unearth the previously unseen. Such digging prepares the soil for seeds to be planted by others so that the later harvest may yeild enough for many.

Thomas was uncertain, but Thomas came to the assembly of the faithful. He presented himself for the encounter with God in the midst of others, and we are called to do likewise.

Why? So that we though believing we may have life in Jesus' name.
Through faith we may become alive in the energy filled way of forgiven disciples.
That frees us to free others - to unbind the sins that imprison them in small rooms.

Let us seek to unlock doors; the doors of our hearts; the doors of our common life.
Let us strive to remove any barrier we have raised to the entry of God and neighbor so that the breath of the spirit may be received and the face of the world transformed.