JOHN 20:19-31

• How different today is…Easter Sunday!! New faces…a celebration!!

• But, today…seems like just another Sunday!!

• Gone are the people…gone are the secular aspects of Easter…chocolate

bunnies…jelly beans…colored eggs…some left over …not as attractive

• Gone too…is the contrast of the somberness of Good Friday and the

aroma of Easter Lilies….well we have a few left…

• I suspect that most of us feel as if we are right back where we were before

Easter

• Why we need to hear the message concerning how the Risen Christ gave

new life to his disciples…gave them the Holy Spirit and energized them

and gave them confidence…made them into people who were filled with

both peace and power.

• Important to understand that the disciples were scared…at first!!

• They witnessed much

• After good Friday…and after Easter Sunday…powerless people

1. On the evening of the 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!”

• Jesus appeared…not only blessed them…”peace be with you”…not only

said “as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you”…but he breathed on

them and said “receive the Holy Spirit”

• He gave them power!!

2. And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

Spring break “rock cleansing”…

Me in garage

Kay in beds

4:00…no way Kay was going to get done…

Carly,…then Logan…

Back hurting…just starting laughing…

Logan said dad’s delirious…roll me up!!

At first …fear factor…

Then I started thinking how each of these rocks represented us

How we start out clean…gather dirt and pine needles in our life

And then one by one God washes away our stuff…

He breathes new life in us…and give us the Holy Spirit…gives us power

• You and I often share the same hopelessness…as thoseThose huddled in the upper

room together

• We too are shattered by the strain of battle

• The strain of living…

• The strain of trying to make sense of it all…

• In our fear we cling to each other

• We are no different than the first disciples…we must remember that nothing that

this world can provide can give us eternal happiness…except the gift of the Risen

Christ and the Spirit he gives us

• Today’s gospel is about how the risen Christ pushed open the bolted door of a

church…of how Christ enters the fearful chambers of every believer…and fills

the place with his own life

• The fundamental reality of our faith lies not in what we believe…but in who

we believe in!! This not just another Sunday…

The good feelings of Easter Sunday may be seven days in the past…the afflictions of

daily life may have returned full force…but the reality of Easter…the Risen

Christ…is still with us.