No More Locked Doors

“With the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them…”

John 20:19

“On the evening of the first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked...”  That’s how Jesus found them on that first Easter evening… that’s how he found them one week later – hiding in fear behind lock doors.  Those words last Sunday reminded me of all the times I have visited people who were locked up for one reason or another – locked up in a psychiatric ward for trying to commit suicide… locked up in the county jail for stealing… locked up in a nursing home because the person had Alzheimer’s.  Each time my thoughts were the same.  No matter how much the person deserves to be locked up or needs to be locked up, it has got to be hard.  It’s got to be scary. They tell you where you can go and where you can’t go.  You have no control over your life. 

The truth is that all of us have prisons and locked doors in our lives.  For one person it’s a bad marriage.  For another it’s her debts.  I remember one woman who was paralyzed from the waist down.  She felt imprisoned by her bed.   There is the husband imprisoned by his addiction to filthy adult materials and the wife imprisoned by her anger with him.  There is the man imprisoned by his age.  At 55 he lost his job and no one would hire him.  There was the mother trapped by things going on in her daughter’s life.  She was so concerned that she could eat or sleep. What are the prisons in your life?  Whatever they are, most of the locked doors in our lives are doors we have built ourselves.  For the disciples its was their fear of the Jews.   Peter was imprisoned by guilt because he had denied Jesus.  Thomas was imprisoned by his doubts and unbelief.  For the man with all the debt, it was his greed that locked him in that prison.   The lady in the nursing home wasn’t imprisoned by her paralysis.    She was angry with God and full of self-pity.  However we do it, you and I build strong locked doors, doors we are powerless to unlock.

Thank God that there is no prison that can contain Him.  There are no locked doors that can stop Him.  That’s what this first tells us.  On the evening of that first day of the week, the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews.  Yet, without unlocking a door Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”   In the first chapter of Revelation Jesus explains why no prison, no locked door that stand in His way.  “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last.  I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.  Did you hear him?  Jesus holds the keys that unlock the prison doors  of our sin.  He holds those keys because, as He said, I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! 

Indeed the story of our Lord’s life is the story of the greatest jail break ever.  Jesus took on our flesh and blood.  He became like us in every way except one. Sin could not imprison Him for  “he committed no sin nor was any deceit found in his mouth.”  That’s when Jesus did the most amazing thing.  He entered our prison.  He switched places with us.  God made Him who knew no sin to be sin from us… On the cross.  He entered the prison of sin and death for you and me so that that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.  Then Easter morning  He burst His three day prison.  He rose from the dead. 

The jail break didn’t stop there.  The doors were locked for fear of the Jews and Jesus came stood among his disciples.  He unlocked the door of fear. He invited Thomas to see and touch his wounds.  He set his free from the locked doors of doubt.  He set Peter free from his guilt.  He does the same thing for you and me.  At your baptism He raised you up from sin and death.  When you confess your sins, He forgives.  When you cry out, He answers.  That paralyzed woman became a source of encouragement to others.  In Christ there is no prison that can stop Him.   He holds the keys of death and Hades.  In Him there are no more locked doors!  You are truly free.  Amen.