Easter is always a great spiritual high. People flock to church with family and friends to hear the good news, “He is not here. He has been raised from the dead,” and sing their hearts out with joy. Then a week passes and we come to today, the Sunday after Easter, which the church calls, “Low Sunday.” And usually that’s the way it feels. Something of a let-down.

It was a week after Easter that Thomas found himself low and let down with doubt about Jesus really being alive. This is the day, a week after Easter, that he said he wouldn’t take the testimony of his fellow disciples. He had to see for himself, he had to feel Jesus personally, put his own finger in the nail holes, touch Jesus’ wounded side with his own hands. Otherwise he wouldn’t believe what the others said.

But before we come down hard on Thomas and condemn him, let’s stop and remember that was something that Jesus never did about Thomas. He didn’t scold him or chastise him and reject him or condemn him for doubting. He blessed Thomas with what he needed to believe and said the most blessed way is coming to believe he is raised from the dead without seeing. A week after Easter is when Thomas’ doubt gave birth to faith. And Thomas cried out, “My Lord and my God.” He needed to question in order to believe. So, before we treat Thomas in a way the risen Jesus never treated him, let’s keep in mind where the other disciples were just a week earlier when the news broke that Jesus was alive again and had been seen by Mary Magdalene.

When evening came that day--that first day of the week, that Sunday, that first Easter Day--the disciples were hiding behind locked doors for fear of what others might do to them. And a week later to the day--Sunday--they were back in the house hiding again behind locked doors! And both times they are in hiding, they are found out by the risen Lord. Not with condemnation or reprimand or rebuke, but with peace. “Jesus came and stood among them and said, `Peace be with you.’” And then he breathed the Holy Spirit on them.

The compassions of the risen Lord are abundant and endless. The fearful followers are given new Breath, the very Breath of Jesus. New life and power are breathed over them, on them, and in them. They are given peace and filled with the very breath and Spirit and life of Jesus.

And even when they are found by Jesus hiding for a second time behind locked doors just a week later, it is still his peace that he greetings and blesses them with. Especially, Thomas. Jesus finds Thomas hiding his faith behind his doubts and demands for proof. Jesus finds him and Thomas is moved from doubt to belief, from silence to speech, from “unless” and “if only” to “My Lord and my God.”

And now before we get down on those disciples for hiding in fear, let’s look at ourselves to see where we, also, are fearfully hiding away behind locked doors. I can think of several places we go in hiding with the disciples because of risk and danger.

We hide behind our silence, refraining from telling others what God means to us and the difference Christ makes for us. Our passive silence about the passion of God for shalom and about the holy ways of Jesus. Our silence of indifference to the pain and suffering of others and the world. Our silence in speaking truth to power and caring enough to confront. Our silence that is afraid to tell other who we are or is afraid to love. Our silence when it comes to inviting others to Christ for new life. Our silence that withholds forgiveness of others or forgiveness of ourselves. Yet, hiding behind our silence, Jesus finds us and stands among us, not to condemn or rebuke us, but to give us peace and breathe new life and Spirit in us.

Or sometimes we hide behind our skepticism or cynicism that is unwilling to trust and step out in faith and risk ourselves for God. Our skepticism that wants, with Detective Joe Friday, “Just the facts,” as if truth is only a matter of fact, the provable, the verifiable. Our cynicism about invisible realities and the unseen world and a God whom we can not control and for whom nothing is impossible. “Faith,” said the writer of Hebrews, “is the conviction of things not seen.” We hide behind the locked door of disbelief and cynicism, and the living Lord finds us, not to chastise or scold us, but to give us new eyes to see a new way and new breathe to live a new way. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you…Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Even saying we are not like the disciples and are not hiding in or behind anything is to be hiding behind denial. And in our denial, Jesus appears with the peace and love that open us up to see ourselves honestly and reveal ourselves just as we are and no longer feel the need to hide behind a mask.

And in the end, isn’t all our hiding an attempt to hide from God in one way or another? God wants fully, completely to be in Christ our Lord and our God, and we lock the door and pull down the shades and hide. We’d rather be our own lord and god. And we know enough about God to know that if God were to find us, God would want to do some renovating and remodeling and redecorating of this old house. So we lock the door of the house to keep God out and hide ourselves in with our unwillingness to change or be changed. God wants to find us and love us into transformation, and, believe it or not, God in Christ will find us. The risen Jesus doesn’t need a door to walk through and step into our lives anymore than he needed the door of the house opened that first Easter evening and again the Sunday after Easter. He knows who were are and where we are hiding and he comes to us with peace and power to calm and claim us.

And deep down, whether we know it or not or say it or not or believe it or not, deep down when we are in those places of fear and hiding, don’t we really want to be found by such a loving, living Lord and welcome the life he gives and the wholeness he provides and the healing he brings and, yes, even the changes and difference he makes?

In his book of prayers titled, Lord, Could You Make It a Littler Better?, Robert Raines offers this prayer which speaks for all of us in hiding:

I’m a child playing hide-and-seek

Waiting for someone to find me

And call my name

And say, “You’re it!”

And you did it, Lord!

You found me hiding

In the silliest, saddest places,

Behind old grudges…

Under tons of disappointments…

Tangled up in guilt,

Smothered with success,

Choking on sobs that nobody hears.

You found me

And whispered my name

And said, “You’re it!”

And I believe you mean it…

And now maybe

The silent tears can roll out of my throat…

Get wet on my cheeks…

And now maybe

I don’t have to play hide-and-seek anymore.[1]

To a suffering church, Peter wrote: “May grace and peace be yours in abundance. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading…Although you have not seen him, you love him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

Whenever and where ever we are in hiding, we are found out by Jesus, the risen Christ. And when he finds us hiding, he brings peace in the midst of fear--grace and peace in abundance—and gives us new birth into a living hope. The living Lord appears and steps into our places of hiding and fear with words of peace and Breath of Life and call to believe and follow. In hiding, we are found out by our risen Lord who lovingly whispers our name and says, “You’re it!”

May we all come to believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy!

[1] Robert Raines, Lord, Could You Make It a Little Better?, 68.