The Doors Were Shut and He Did Not Break Them

The coat rack has too many coats on it, including two that belong to nobody currently living in this house, and the boots underneath it are in the order they were kicked off in.

Evening. Rain. Three of them coming in laughing with their hoods still up because the walk back from the corner was worse than anybody expected.

Warm hallway. The lamp on the shelf.

And at the end of the hall, past the kitchen door, there is another door, and it is shut.

It has been shut a long while. There is nothing dramatic in there. Boxes, a chair, the things that got put in when they got put in, and a window with the curtain drawn.

Everybody in the house knows it is not opened and nobody has ever once said anything about it, which tells you what kind of house this is and what kind of people they are.

And she is aware, in the way you are aware of a background noise, that there is something in her that is shut in exactly the same way. She has been steadier since it closed. She would not undo that.

But something has begun stirring in her lately, a wanting to be more awake, and it is arriving hand in hand with a fear that she cannot get rid of, which is that the waking will come the way the closing came: suddenly, without asking, and from outside.

Sit on the stairs with me a minute. Because there is an evening in John's Gospel where a group of people had a door shut for exactly that reason, and I want you to see what He did about the door.

The doors were shut for fear, and He came through them

It is the evening of the first Easter Sunday. The disciples are together in a room and they have locked it, because the people who killed Him last week know exactly who they are.

Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.John 20:19

Three things, and I want all three.

The doors were shut for fear. John tells us the motive. It is not stubbornness or rebellion. It is fear, and it is a completely reasonable fear.

Came Jesus and stood in the midst. He does not knock it down. There is no forcing in the text. He arrives inside without the door being any part of the story.

Peace be unto you. And the first thing out of His mouth is not a comment on the door. It is peace.

You are dealt with by Somebody who arrives without forcing, and the first word He said in a room locked out of fear was peace. That is not a soft reading of the resurrection; John 20:19 gives the fear, the shut doors and the greeting in one sentence in that order, and it is the Holy Spirit who takes an evening in Jerusalem and stands it up in a hallway with rain outside and too many coats on the rack. Whatever comes into that closed place, it will not come the way the closing came.

Now the second half, and it is your specific fear, and it is worth honoring rather than soothing.

You are afraid that waking will arrive suddenly, without asking, from outside. That fear did not come from nowhere. It is shaped exactly like something that happened, which is how fear works.

But look at the whole record of how He comes to people. He asks questions He knows the answer to, so that a person can speak first. He waits at wells. He stands at a door and knocks. He walks seven miles beside two men without announcing Himself. There is a consistent quality to it and the quality is that He does not overrun anybody.

You are approached by Somebody whose whole recorded manner is asking rather than overrunning, and He has never once taken a person by surprise in the way you are braced for. Revelation 3:20 says behold, I stand at the door, and knock, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes that posture of His the thing a woman can actually rely on rather than a nice image.

What peace does when it gets into a shut room

One more thing, because it matters for what happens after this article.

When He came into that room, He did not open the door on His way in and He did not open it on His way out. The door was not the point of the visit. The people in the room were.

And what changed in that room was not the security arrangements. It was that they were no longer alone in there.

That is what is available to you tonight. Not the room at the end of the hall being opened. Not the shut place in you being gone through. That He is in there with you, and that being in there with somebody is different from being in there.

You are not alone in the closed part, and that is a different thing from the closed part being opened. Psalm 139:8 says if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes there mean anywhere at all, including a room with the curtain drawn.

And here is the last piece, because you have a mouth and it works in a hallway.

Jesus said in Matthew 17:20 that faith the size of a mustard seed, spoken to a mountain, is enough to move it. The smallest seed there is. Not how open you are prepared to be. That a person opens their mouth and says what God has said. You have that standing because you are in Christ and Christ is in you, and speaking is the appointed way this works. We flip the switch. He sends the current.