"Hunkered Down"

Dear Friends in Christ,

The word of God that engages us this morning is found in the gospel of John. Chapter 20, beginning with verse 19, “On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

            Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

            When the sun rose on January 12^th, 1888 the temperature around Lincoln, Nebraska had climbed from sub-zero temperatures the previous day to a relatively warm 28 degrees. Taking advantage of the sudden warming temperatures, children traipsed to school and farmers went into fields to check their herds, and young men left the home to head into town to buy wares at the local general store.

            What the people didn’t know was that the weather fronts surrounding the Great Plains were creating the perfect laboratory for record snowfalls and bone-chilling temperatures. An Arctic cold front was coming down from Alberta Canada, and at the same time a large moisture-laden warm front was coming up from the Gulf of Mexico. When these two pressure systems collided, strong winds and record snowfalls were the result. The temperature dropped 48 degrees, from 28 degrees above zero to negative 20 degrees, in a matter of minutes. The strong winds kicked up the already existing three inches of powdery snow that had accumulated the week before, and the additional snow from the storm created blizzard-like conditions that have not been seen in the Great Plains States since.

            The blizzard itself was destructive, but what made this particular blizzard exceptionally devastating was its timing. Roaring across the Great Plains, this blizzard struck the Dakota Territories and the state of Nebraska around 3PM, roughly the same time children were heading back home after school. This blizzard officially resulted in the deaths of 235 people, most of the school children, which is why this storm has been called “The Schoolchildren’s Blizzard of 1888.”

            To truly appreciate the fierceness of this storm, listen to the what the 1893 Encyclopedia Britannica had to say about the blizzard, “"In fine clear weather, with little or no warning, the sky darkened and the air was filled with snow, or ice-dust, as fine as flour, driven before a wind so furious and roaring that men's voices were inaudible at a distance of six feet.  Men in the fields and children on their way from school died ere they could reach shelter; some of them having been not frozen, but suffocated from the impossibility of breathing the blizzard.”

             During this blizzard, men women and children took shelter wherever they could find it. Some children stayed in schoolhouses until the storm passed. Others, many unsuccessfully, tried to rush to the closest house where there was food and heat. One desperate woman, by the name of Etta Shattuck, went so far as to embed herself within a haystack and wait out the storm in that prickly place.

            Men, women and children hunkered down wherever they could and waited while the storm raged and howled outside.

            It wasn’t a blizzard, it wasn’t even a thunderstorm, but something in our Gospel reading has the disciples hunkered down. They are gathered together and taking shelter in a private room and the doors to that room are locked. John says, “[the disciples] were there for fear of the Jews.” The disciples were afraid of the storm that was raging outside those locked doors. Afraid of the storm that started three days prior.

            It started out relatively calm and relatively peaceful, much like the Schoolchildren’s Blizzard. Though previous predictions about Christ’s suffering and death in Jerusalem went unheeded, they were brought to the surface once more during the Passover feast when Jesus unexpectedly said in Matthew 26:21, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”

            The disciples immediately set about trying to determine who the betrayer will be, but this task is soon forgotten as the need for sleep encroaches upon them. They follow Jesus to the Mount of Olives and he takes them to the garden of Gethsemane, where he asks them to stay awake while he goes away to pray. The conditions on this night were unique. Rapidly the circumstances surrounding Jesus changed, the perfect storm had arrived.

The disciples were unable to stay awake, and Jesus urgently woke them up as a band of soldiers, chief priests and officers approached. Betrayed by a kiss Jesus was hauled away. The disciples ran for cover, wherever they could find it. Peter sought cover under the strength of his sword. Lunging at Christ’s captors and cutting off the ear of a servant named Malchus. Judas sought to ride out the storm under the cover of lies, betrayal and money. The gospel writer Mark tells us of an anonymous gentleman who also seized by the mob. The nameless young man ran away in such a hurry that he ran away naked, his single article of clothing left behind in the hands of his would-be captors.

The disciples all ran away. They looked for cover, for a place to hide. They weren’t willing to face this storm of hatred that assaulted their Lord from every side.

            From a distance the disciples watched. They watched as the storm strengthened in numbers. At first it was just Judas and his band of soldiers, then the chief priests got involved, and then the high priest too. Before you know it the Roman governor Pontius Pilate is involved and an insurrectionist Barabbas is released back into the crowd. Numbers of people were gathered together at the impromptu trial set up against our Lord. The rumblings of the storm could be heard from a distance. You could hear sharp cracks of the whips as they scourged Christ’s back, the dull thuds as fists connected with his body, and the faint rumblings of a united chant. Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!

            And they did crucify him. And when they did, the entire earth convulsed. The sky turned black, the earth shook, large rocks split apart and the temple curtain was torn in two. All the while the disciples were hunkered down, hiding from the storm.

            And when that storm finally passed, the devastation was seen. Christ was in a tomb, blood pooled on the peak of Calvary, tears stained the cheeks of the women and of Peter, Judas dangled from the end of a rope with his intestines spilled on the ground, and the disciples were afraid; confident that a similar storm with similar consequences would crush them too if they left their locked room. So that’s where they stayed.

And suddenly, the light pierced through the clouds, and not just through the clouds but through locked doors as well. There was Jesus Christ miraculously standing among them, stricken, smitten and afflicted no more! He lives! Jesus Christ, the crucified one walks and he talks. And to those cowering in fear, he says “Peace be with you.”  But that’s not all. Christ the crucified. Christ the victor over death also says, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

In today’s gospel reading Thomas gets a bad rap for being the unbelieving disciple, and he was. There is no excusing his crass and vocal unbelief, but the fact is, the other ten disciples were guilty too. Eight days after Jesus appeared to the disciples, eight days after he sent them out as the Father had sent him, eight days after the disciples touched the very evidence that death has been conquered, eight days after all this and where do we find the disciples? STILL locked up in the very same room. Still hunkered down. Just like you and me.

You and I get that way too. You and I are like the disciples that Christ appeared to on that first Easter Sunday. Indeed, we are Christ’s disciples and we have been commanded to “proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins to all nations” Luke 24:47. And yet we remain hunkered down. Because even though we have the testimony of Jesus Christ that sin, death and the devil have been conquered, we still remain hunkered down, afraid of the storm we can still hear raging outside.

Did you hear it on April 3^rd? I know I did. I heard it when I read our neighbors to the west in Iowa overturned a 10-year-old ban on same sex marriages. Blatantly defying God’s established order for human sexuality.

Or how about in March? When Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, IL held its first homosexual school-sponsored dance. And in that same week the Illinois High School Association banned prayer or religious messages over the public address system prior to IHSA tournament games. That ban stands even when those games are hosted at private schools, even when both teams are from Christian schools, and even when both teams agree to pray and have done so in the past.

I don’t know about you, but I heard the storm howling during the most recent Miss USA pageant that took place last Sunday. For those of you who don’t know, Miss California, who was a leading contender to win the pageant was asked a question by an openly homosexual celebrity judge by the name of Perez Hilton, about whether or not all states should legalize gay-marriages. Miss California responded in this way. "Well I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. Um, we live in a land that you can choose same sex marriage or opposite marriage and, you know what, in my country and in, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman."

This response cost Miss California the crown. Celebrity judge Perez Hilton publically said after the competition, "The way Miss California answered her question lost her the crown, without a doubt!“ And that’s his polite comment. Hours later he followed this comment with another which reads, “[Miss California] gave the worst answer in pageant history. She lost because she’s a dumb b—, okay?”

And then the Wall Street Journal published on Wednesday, this statement, “[Perez] also said that if she won the pageant, he would’ve jumped on the stage and snatched the crown from her head.”

In honor of the 8^th commandment, I am bound to put the best construction on everything and am happy to report that Perez Hilton publically apologized for the name calling.

Can you hear the storm? Who wants to step out into the middle of that quagmire? Who wants to stretch out their neck in that vulnerable environment and represent the voice of God? You’re going to get crucified in that environment. Opponents to Christianity will slam you into ground. And you know it. Which is why it is so easy to stay hunkered down in our churches. It’s easy to spend our lives in our ivory towers, where our beds are soft and our food is served warm and the company is always pleasant.

But just like the disciples, Jesus doesn’t call us to stay hunkered down. Jesus stands among us and says, “Peace be with you, and as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” And when he says this, Jesus is asking us to be like Minnie Freeman.

Minnie Freeman was a 17-year old schoolteacher in Mira Valley Nebraska in 1888. She, along with thirteen school children, was trapped in a one-room schoolhouse when the great Schoolchildren’s Blizzard of 1888 came roaring over the open fields. Instead of hunkering down herself, Minnie Freeman gathered the 13 schoolchildren entrusted to her care and led them over half a mile away through the blizzard to the boarding house where she lived, and all thirteen of her students survived.

That’s what the disciples did. In spite of their initial hesitation, and in spite of the storm of persecution raging outside those walls in the city of Jerusalem, the disciples did NOT remain hunkered down. I don’t know who, the Bible doesn’t tell us, but someone, some disciple (I’d like to think it was Thomas) unlocked those doors, and stepped out into the storm and into the world. And when they did they went out just as they were sent, carrying with them the forgiveness of sins and accompanied by the peace of God. Peter went to Rome, Philip traveled to Syria, St. Andrew traveled as far north as Russia, and Thomas – doubting Thomas –sailed as far east as shores of India, always sharing the love of Jesus and proclaiming the forgiveness of sins.

My brothers and sisters we need to unlock those doors and we need to step out into the storm. We need to be like Minnie Freeman and the disciples and help navigate those entrusted into our care. Christ did not call us to unlock those doors and go hate homosexuals. Christ did, however, call us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Don’t be afraid, Jesus knows that there is a storm raging out there. He knows, because it killed him. But the whips and the rods and the nails and thorns and even death itself were unable to fully suppress Jesus Christ. The storm couldn’t keep him down. And it won’t keep us down either, because we have that beautiful promise from Jesus Christ that, “Surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

            Amen.