THE LOCKED ROOM AND THE SENT CHURCH

By Braden Pedersen

It is Easter Sunday evening, and the disciples are hiding.

Think about that for a moment. The greatest event in the history of the world has just occurred. The tomb is empty. Death itself has been defeated. And the men and women who were closest to Jesus — the ones who walked with Him, ate with Him, watched Him die — are huddled behind a locked door, paralyzed by fear.

I find that detail almost unbearably honest. But the Bible doesn’t hide it. That’s good, because if I’m being truthful, I recognize something of myself in that locked room. And I suspect you might too.

What happened next is one of the most staggering transformations in human history.

These same Jesus followers who were hiding behind a locked door on Easter Sunday evening? Within weeks, they would be standing in the streets of Jerusalem proclaiming the resurrection to the very people who had crucified Jesus. Within years they would be carrying the gospel across Asia Mi nor, into Europe, into Africa. Many of them would be killed for it.

It’s heartwarming and astonishing. The very followers who had cowered went willingly, boldly, with a joy that their persecutors could not extinguish and could not explain. Some thing happened in that locked room that turned frightened, grieving people into the most unstoppable missionary movement the world has ever seen.

What happened in that room is exactly what needs to happen in us.

Most of us who have followed Jesus for any length of time have learned how to receive. We know how to show up on Sunday morning, how to open our Bibles, how to pray, how to take in what God has for us. The rhythms of receiving are familiar. Comfortable, even. But somewhere between receiving and going — between the locked room and the sent church — a lot of us have quietly stalled. We are nourished. We are growing. And we are staying right where we are.

Into that locked room, Jesus comes.

He doesn’t rebuke them for hiding. Nor does He arrive with a lecture about their failure of nerve. Instead, He stands in their midst and says, simply, “Peace be with you.” Then He shows them His hands and His side. And then He says it again: “Peace be with you.” The peace comes before the sending. That sequence matters more than we usually notice.

Jesus is not commissioning people who have “finally gotten their act together.” He is commissioning frightened, grieving, confused people who He loves and who have just watched Him be crucified, and who are not at all sure what comes next. He gives them peace, the shalom of a restored relationship with God, purchased by those specific wounds He is showing them. Then, on the basis of that peace, He sends them.

“As the Father has sent me,” He says, “I am sending you.”

That phrase deserves more than a quick reading. The shape of Jesus’ mission becomes the shape of our lives. And what did that shape look like? It was prophetic — He spoke truth to godless power and paid for it with His life. It was sacrificial — the cosmic King became a homeless itinerant teacher. It was gracious — He held truth and love together without letting either one collapse. And it was embodied — He didn’t just announce the arrival of God’s kingdom; He demonstrated it in every healing, every meal, every conversation with people the rest of the world had written off.

That is the life mission Jesus gives us now. As pastor Tim Keller often said, this mission is a dangerous rescue operation, carried out in the ordinary moments of an ordinary life. For example, a conversation with a neighbor, a question asked of a coworker, a meal shared with someone who is quietly coming apart and needs to know that some one sees them.

And then Jesus does something that might seem odd to us today. He breathes on them.

The action is deliberately an echo of a biblical theme. Remember that, in Genesis 2, God breathed into the dust and man became a living being. Here, the risen Christ breathes on His frightened disciples and says, “Receive the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit.” It is a new creation moment. The same God who breathed life into the first human being is now breathing new life into the first church. You are not being sent alone, Jesus is saying. You are being sent with everything I have to give.

This is the heartbeat of Back to the Bible. We exist because Scripture is not merely for our own nourishment. The Bible is the living word of a sending God, given to us today, for the sake of a world that desperately needs what we have received.

Every time we open our Bibles, we are receiving something that was never meant to stay in the locked room.

The door is open. Spiritual peace and power have been given. The Spirit has been breathed.

WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?