When Jesus Broke Into a House
How Jesus responded to his disciples’ response to the empty
tomb
Larry Thorson
Scripture Text: John 20:19-23
Jn 20:19 On the evening of that first day of
the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of
the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be
with you!”
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Introduction
That
Empty Tomb Feeling. It’s what you
feel when something happens that you don’t expect and you don’t like. Everyone who encountered Jesus’ empty tomb
was surprised and everyone experienced it in a different way. We’ve seen in this series how when Jesus
died, Mary cried, and the guards lied.
In this study we’ll see what his male followers did.
The Empty Tomb From
Jesus’ Perspective
First let’s look at the empty tomb
experience of Jesus himself. When Jesus
died on the cross his friends came and carried him to a new tomb donated by a
wealthy and prominent Jewish leader by the name of Joseph of Arimethia. There Jesus was carefully wrapped in new linens
like a mummy from head to toe. They laid
him in a carved out section of the tomb and its entrance was sealed with a two
ton stone.
From Friday until Sunday Jesus’
Spirit left his beaten body. Scripture
indicates that he descended into hell which is what we say when we recite the Apostles’
Creed but few people seem to understand what that means. The Old Testament word translated
"hell" is actually the Hebrew word "Sheol," and the
corresponding New Testament word
"Hades." Jesus described this resting-place for the dead when
he recounts what happened to a poor man named Lazarus and a certain rich man
after death (Luke 16:19-31). From his description there we see that Hades (or
Sheol) was divided into two compartments—a place of comfort (Abraham’s Bosom,
v.22) and a place of torment (v.28).
According to the Bible, when Jesus died,
he descended into the "lower, earthly regions" (Ephesians 4:9) to
what is called "Abraham’s Bosom" or "Paradise" where the Old
Testament saints were comforted until he came and then "ascended on
high" (to heaven) and thus he "led captives in his train"
(Ephesians 4:8). He also went to the "place of torment" (Luke
When
his spirit returned to his body on the first Easter he found himself wrapped in
these burial cloths, lying in a cold, empty tomb with no one around him. We don’t know when the angels actually got
there to minister to him. It says in
John 20:6 that by the time Simon Peter got to the tomb he saw the strips of
linen lying there but the burial cloth that had been around his head was neatly
folded by itself. That sounds like he
struggled on his own to get the linens off that bound his arms and legs which
is why they might have been seen laying around but then used his freed hands to
neatly take off the cloth around his head and fold it.
Think about it, Jesus spent three years
teaching his closest followers that he would be killed and raised from the dead
on the third day. He taught that over
and over. If I told my wife that on
Saturday morning I would be at the
Jesus woke up in an empty tomb. I don’t know if he expected anyone to be
there but if they had believed what he had been telling them they should have
camped out in front of the tomb until at least the fourth day had rolled
around. Obviously I’m not Jesus because
if I was I would have been thinking here “Great, this is perfect, I told them
that I was going to be resurrected on the third day. Hello, this is the third day, where are
you?”
If it was me I would have been
frustrated that they didn’t listen to me.
Why would they wrap his body up like a dead man if he told them that he
would be resurrected on the third day?
Because none of his followers believed that he was capable of rising
from the dead. Not one. I would have been mad at their self
centeredness. I would have felt
betrayed. I’d have been a mess and
revenge would probably be the first thing on my mind.
What he should have heard when he woke
up was a gathering of his disciples singing and worshipping God outside the
tomb. He should have heard, “Master, we
never doubted that you would rise up.” “We
just hung out here until you did.”
When Roy Alvarez, one of our recent new
members died a few months ago his family displayed his body in their old church
sanctuary, the First Filipino Presbyterian Church in
Jesus didn’t find that homecoming when
he came to. Only Mary lingered at the
tomb and cried but even she didn’t expect that the empty tomb meant he was
resurrected to life. Try to imagine what
Jesus’ empty tomb feeling was like.
Breaking into a Locked
House
The next thing Jesus did was go to the
home where his disciples were hanging out.
Nothing in the story that we read indicates that his disciples were
expecting anything of a resurrection. It
says that they were in a room where they locked the door because they were
afraid of the Jews.
They themselves were Jews but they
feared other Jews and they had good reason to.
The chief priests were blaming them for stealing his body. They could all be arrested.
There’s been a lot anti-Semitism over
the years some of it fueled by misunderstandings of who did what to Jesus. I want to say the struggle with the priests
and Jesus’ disciples wasn’t a struggle of Jews versus Americans. It was a struggle between Jewish
brothers. Non Jews didn’t even enter the
picture for a few years yet. The priests
were afraid of losing their power in Judaism.
Jesus was a threat to their kingdom.
So here they are thinking that they’re
safe from the Jews because of their little lock and the king of the Jews just
walks right in. It kind of reminds me of
a reality format television program called “It Takes a Thief”. Each episode involves a selected family who
does everything they know to keep thieves from entering their home; usually a
nice home in an American suburb. Then
the family sits in a van a few blocks away and watches former thieves turned
actors not only break in but damage the furnishings in their house. The show then pays for the repairs to the home
interior and the installation of a better burglar proof security system. The burglar actors then return and try to
break through the new security system with of course little success. The point of the show seems to be to whittle
down your confidence in your present home security system. It works for me every time. That’s exactly what Jesus did. Imagine the expression on the disciples’
faces when he walked in.
Remember the last time Jesus had been
with his disciples. They had all
scattered. No one stood up for him. The most outspoken of them, Peter had
actually denied him three times when asked to defend him. They not only betrayed him by not sticking by
him and defending him but then proved that they didn’t believe he could
resurrect himself from the dead. Some
friends they turned out to be.
Jesus’ Response to His
Disciples
Now the first thing they remember Jesus
saying to them was “Peace be with you!” (v.19)
The next thing he does is show them his hands and side as proof. They were overjoyed.
The second thing he says to them “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” They could have interpreted that to mean “As
the Father sent me to hell over these last three days, I’m going to send you to
hell.” But that’s not what he meant and
they knew it.
If he was mad he didn’t let that deter
him from his mission. No matter what his
empty tomb feeling was when he awoke from the dead, he got up and carried on
with his mission of reconciling people with their Creator.
The next thing he did was breathe the
Holy Spirit upon them. That was the
first mass filling of God’s Holy Spirit.
Prior to that individuals had received the Holy Spirit for individual
tasks they were called and sent to do.
But Jesus’ next line may reveal the
most about his empty tomb feeling. He
said “If you forgive anyone his sins,
they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” The
Message which is a modern paraphrase of the Bible phrases it this way: “If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone
for good. If you don’t forgive sins,
what are you going to do with them?”[1]
What are you going to do with sins
committed against you? Lewis Smedes, in his book, The Art of Forgiving, says
One
of God's better jokes on us was to give the power to remember the past and
leave us no power to undo it. We have all sometimes been willing to trade
almost anything for a magic sponge to wipe just a few moments off the table of
time. But whatever the mind can make of the future, it cannot silence a
syllable of the past. There is no delete key for reality. And it comforts us
little to know that not even God can undo what has been done.
It would give us some comfort if we
could only forget a past that we cannot change. But the ability to remember
becomes an inability to forget when our memory is clogged with pain inflicted
by people who did us wrong. If we could only choose to forget the cruelest
moments, we could, as time goes on, free ourselves from their pain. But the
wrong sticks like a nettle in our memory. The only way to remove the nettle is
with a surgical procedure called forgiveness. It is not as though forgiving
were the remedy of choice among other options, less effective but still useful.
It is the only remedy.[2]
People choose to surrender their hope for tomorrow because of
their holding on to yesterday’s pain. Unforgiveness haunts the
world.
The disciples were locked in a room by themselves because they were
living in a world that does not forgive. Unforgiveness tends to lock us up in
places where we choose not to leave. We get locked up from the inside out.
Desmond Tutu tells the story, in
his book, No Future Without Forgiveness,
about a group of
Application
For Jesus that empty
tomb feeling meant awakening to a world that betrayed him. As he had the power to resurrect his dead
body to life so he had the power to resurrect forgiveness from his soul towards
his disciples. He did it.
You can’t follow that
example on your own anymore than you will be able to resurrect your dead body
to life when you die. That’s why Jesus
had to break into a locked house and breathe the Holy Spirit into his willing
disciples. Only then would they have the
power to resurrect forgiveness from their soul towards those who hurt
them.
That empty tomb
feeling. For you that unexpected event
in your life may leave you wondering how you can get revenge and maybe rightly
so. But that’s the locked door to your
prison. For others we have phobias. I have a shot phobia that nearly kept me from
a mission trip to
But don’t try to do
it on your own. Jesus came to reconcile
us, not to show us how to reconcile. If
you trust in Jesus Christ for your salvation then pray a little prayer
“Almighty God, I am
angry because someone has hurt me a lot.
I’m still mad about what they did.
Fill me with your Holy Spirit afresh so that I will have the power and
the knowledge to respond to them as you would have me respond. In Jesus’ name. Amen.”
Describe a time when you felt
abandoned and alone. How did you get
over it?
Why do you think the disciples
locked themselves into a house on the first Easter? What did they fear?
What do you think the disciples
did once Jesus left after appearing to them?
What would you have done?
What makes forgiving someone so
difficult?
What do you think is the connection
between being filled with the Holy Spirit and being able to forgive?
Monday Matthew 10:1-10 (vss 11-42
optional)
Think today about Thomas being one
of Jesus’ original twelve disciples and the task Jesus gave to these disciples
(v.1)
How do you think a doubting person
like Thomas dealt with Jesus’ instructions to “drive out evil spirits and to
heal every disease and sickness.”
Tuesday John 11:1-16
What was Thomas’ response to the
resurrection of Lazarus? (v.16)
What did Jesus tell his disciples
that he predicted would happen to him? v.22
Wednesday John 14:1-14
Where was referring to when he
said “You know the way to the place where I am going?” (v.4)
Why do you think Thomas had such a
difficult time understanding where Jesus was going? Do you identify more with Thomas (v.4) or
Philip (v.5)? Which one had more faith?
Thursday John
How was Thomas’ reaction to news
of Jesus’ appearance different than the other disciples? Vs. 24-25
How was Thomas’ response to Jesus after
he saw him similar to the
reaction of the other disciples?
Friday John 11:1-16
How soon did Jesus come when he
heard that his friend Lazarus had died?
Why do you think he took so long?
Describe Thomas’ attitude toward
this situation in v.16.
Saturday Psalm 16
Verse 10 is often interpreted as
being fulfilled in Jesus Christ. How
might this verse be a reference to the resurrection?
With all the scary challenges we
face in life, what is the hope of this Psalm?
v.8
Sunday John
Read
this passage again from Thursday’s reading in light of what you have read and
thought about during the week.
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NEXT SERMON: I Want to Stay in the
Empty Tomb
John 20:24-30