A Return to the Room

(Reading the text, I imagine the disciples in the room where they shared the Last Supper.)

It was like “deja vu all over again.” Only worse.

They could’ve pinched themselves to see if they were sleeping. But already they hurt too much. Under their skin was a constant, gnawing ache. Any sleep they got was restless, even when they took turns staying awake, on guard, listening for the footsteps they expected – and dreaded – on the stairs outside their door.

There was no time for dreams. Only a waking nightmare.

Everything was exactly the way they left it. It just felt strange. Nightmares do that – leaving things the same, but different.

Thirteen people had shared a Passover meal. Afterwards, as the cup went around for the last time, someone hiccupped, “Let’s sing a hymn!” So they did.

Then Judas stood up. “I gonna stretch my legs,” he said, sounding rehearsed. “Not as young as I used to be. So much food could knock a man out.” Others, who didn’t catch his tone, said, “I’ll go with you.” He put them off. “Come on,” they insisted. “It’s Passover. Hey Jesus! Tell Judas we should all go together.”

Jesus thought, “They don’t know, do they? They missed it when I said, ‘I won’t drink the fruit of the vine again until I drink it new in the kingdom of heaven.’ Or when I told them, ‘One of you will betray me this same night.’ They think we’ll just go for a walk.”

Then he sighed: “Sure. We’ll all go to the Mount of Olives.” Judas cocked his head, and nodded, “Yeah. The Mount of Olives. Good idea. I can do that.”

They were so confident they’d be back that they didn’t bother to snuff the oil lamps or lock the door or put away the leftovers. They figured to be gone an hour at most. That’s what the rest of them thought, anyway.

But Thursday turned into Sunday. Four days. And they had only recently returned under cover of darkness.

 The shank of lamb was still on the table. The half-eaten loaf too, and a clay goblet of wine. The only visible change was that thirteen of them went out, and eleven returned.

Now Jesus was dead. They were sure of that. Rumor had it that Judas was too. One of the others said if it wasn’t true, Judas would soon wish he was dead for what he had done.

A lot had happened since Thursday. A kiss between two men in the garden. A conflagration of soldiers. A crowing rooster and mock trial before Pontius Pilate. The crucifixion, which they had not seen, but had heard in cries blown to them on the wind.

It took several days to get back to the upper room. Several days of laying low and hiding – from the soldiers, and maybe from God. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden, they were hiding, afraid to be found.

Peter ran his hand silently along the table. He touched the lamb shank and recoiled in horror from the bare bones and ragged bits of meat. They reminded him of death. 

But they also awakened in him his first hunger in days. He reached through the semi-darkness to the stale half-eaten loaf. Without thinking, he picked it up, tore off a piece of crust, and gave the rest to James who was staring at him.

James took it, and as the bread passed between them, they both felt something stirring.

At the same moment, Philip – or Bartholomew maybe? – one of them, anyway, reached for the cup. He lifted his head and gulped bitter drink down his throat. Then, in an act of half-remembering, he handed the chalice to John.

Again, something stirred between them. But they couldn’t say what.

“I quit!” Someone said. “We can’t hide in this room forever. They’ll find us sooner or later.” With flint and iron, he got a spark to land on a piece of straw and burst into flame. He set it on the wick of the oil lamp, and miraculously it flickered to life.

Across the room, near the locked door, where no one was standing, a floorboard creaked. A shiver ran up each of their spines.

Peter and James froze, with the bread still cradled in all four hands. For Philip, Bartholomew, John, and the cup it was the same. Their hearts stopped. Their eyes blinked.

They weren’t breathing. So Jesus breathed for them. And on them, saying, “Peace be with you.”

He breathed on them, and said it again: “Peace be with you.” Breathed on them – even though dead men don’t breathe. Breathed on them, as God breathed on Adam and Eve when they couldn’t breathe. Jesus breathed on them. And brought them to life.

Then he said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Friends, this is the scary good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ: In our hiding, God comes to us with a new beginning.

In our cowardly hiding, God invites us to know peace. In our deepest inner aching, Christ comes to us through bread and wine and living flesh that no earthen wall or human will can prevent.

Just as Jesus left the sealed tomb, so he entered the locked room to be with his people. Was anything impossible for him? Could any stone or door stop him?

Then, as God sent him, he sent his people to live by faith in this frightening world. He sent his followers and friends, not unprepared or unequipped, but in the power of the Holy Spirit. Sent them out of that tomb of their own making. Sent them – and us with them? – out of the unfriendly confines of darkness and bare bones. Sent them to forgive. And to restore.

That’s how it started – in a room where everything was the same, yet different. It began in a room (the church did) – a room much like this – where the faithful returned, in fear perhaps, but also in hope. A room where bread is broken, and broken again until something stirs in or around us … Or where a cup passes from person to person, with the whispered words: “Remember.” And “this is for you,” until what is strange becomes strangely familiar again.

It starts in that room. With breath and bread and wine and memory, God loves us and invites us to find one another, with all the risk that entails.

That’s where it starts. But it does not stay there. Because God calls us out of that room toward mission – which is just a bigger name for love. Mission is God’s love … for the world. As God sent Jesus, so Jesus sends us.

As you come to the table today, think what you may have been hiding from. Think of the rooms and tombs where you have locked yourself, just as the upper room became a tomb for the disciples. Think how you have boxed your thoughts in, or limited your dreams, or kept others away. Think of the words you have heard over and over, subtly conditioning you with fear: Swine flu. Terror. Drugs and guns. The economy. Death. Pain.

Then imagine Jesus breaking through all of that, inviting you to start over.

The reality is, we will never live in a world that is 100% safe. We will always live in a world of danger. We have plenty to fear.

But Jesus breathes on us and gives us scraps of bread and drops of wine and glimmers of light so that we do not keep hiding in cowardice, but see him and know he is with us. And seeing him, face our fears in hope. Face our fears in hope of redemption and God’s victory over suffering and evil and hate.

It was true for the disciples in that room after Easter, and it is true for us: Every place we return can become a place of departure, a chance not to live in the squalor of fear, but as people of God.

Every return to a room like that one, or this one, presents an opportunity to meet the living Christ and live fully with him.

That’s what this table represents. A return to a room that is familiar, yet different – old, but always made new.

What this table offers is not the stale bread of the past or the soured wine that was left out too long. It offers an encounter with Christ, an opening door, and a call to go with him, in faith, hope, and love …

… Remembering that the greatest is love.