If you want to stay out of the rain, you need to invest in an umbrella. So the saying might go. Or in our world right now, if you want to stay clear of the “cloud,” you need to wear your mask. For what you can’t see, CAN hurt you!

We can’t see it.

We can’t feel it.

We can’t hear it.

We can’t touch it.

And yet, we cower in our homes for fear of the viral invader we call COVID-19.

This invisible “force” is changing the world, changing the way we do life, changing people. But not necessarily all for the worse.

This past week Saturday Night Live put on a show that was completely virtual. So did Jimmy Fallon. Filmed from their homes, hosts and guests played music, interviewed, did skits, and bantered with each other, even about COVID-19. Far from getting us down, COVID-19 seems to be bringing out our best creativity, our innovative edge. And despite fears and deaths and dangers, the grief and the sadness of losing friends and family, those with a voice keep on singing, inspiring hope in others.

This is the human spirit at its best and greatest.

In a sense, these comedians and television personalities are “apostles of hope.” They feel a mission to uplift, to entertain, to laugh in the face of danger, to encourage others hiding in their homes that we can still giggle, that we can still love, that despite anything that happens to us, we cannot be defeated.

They make us believe in life and future while we are surrounded by the pall and threat of death and disease. Most of all, they revive our belief in ourselves and in each other, in our ability not just to survive but to thrive even under the most challenging conditions.

In fact, if anything, the challenges of loss and grief can unite us, can energize us to fight back with the best within us, can encourage us to reach out to others in unprecedented ways, can bring out in us that deeply embedded sense of what it means to be human and one global people.

This is what it means to be an “apostle.” And I imagine this same feeling of new energy, creativity, empowerment, and challenge must have also flowed through the veins of Jesus’ disciples in the aftermath of his death.

In our scripture for today in the gospel of John, Jesus’ disciples are sitting shiva for their lost leader. They are locked in and hidden away from the dangers outside, for their lives had just been turned upside down. Fearing arrest, or even worse death by those who had killed their leader, they feared being recognized or associated with the movement that had led to this travesty. They couldn’t trust their Temple colleagues. They didn’t know who would turn them in and who would guard their secrets. They couldn’t trust their friends, for even one of their own inner circle had betrayed Jesus, had taken a bribe and had turned him in. They barely trusted each other. They were disillusioned with the mission they thought Jesus had been preparing them for. With their rabbi gone, the air had gone out of their balloon, and they sat defeated, paralyzed, not sure what to do next.

As they hid away mourning and grieving both friend and purpose, Jesus appeared among them within the locked room. And their lives suddenly changed. Like a “virtual kick in the pants,” Jesus appearance seemed to energize the disciples, to restore their understanding in what he meant them to do, to revitalize their hope for the future, to reassure their belief in God’s mission and meaning. Jesus’ death forced them to look at Jesus’ mission finally in the way he meant them to see. It forced them into action proclaiming that Messiah meant Resurrection! And that resurrection meant salvation. It taught them the value of faith, not in themselves, not in their world, but in something beyond themselves --in God, and in the risen Jesus. It made them realize that they had power they never imagined they possessed. And when Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit upon them, they rose up, they went out, and they began to heal, and prophesy, and teach, and proclaim God’s victory.

Often, we don’t invest in change until change is forced upon us. Today, a virus is changing the world as we know it with what we might call “forced innovation.” Right now, people all over the world are engaging in social media, communications, relationships, heroism, philanthropy to a degree nearly unprecedented. The human spirit rises to the occasion when threatened or trampled. Human creativity soars by growing new wings the moment our wings are clipped. And God’s Spirit infuses us with life, hope, love, and compassion, even peace at the times when we most grieve.

Today, as in the days of the first apostles, our greatest and most valuable commodity is not gold, or money, or equipment, or even a cure, but faith –in God and in ourselves, in our future and in our human propensity for compassion and sacrificial love.

Jesus did not promise his disciples that things would go back to the way they were before. Bad things DID happen. Nothing was going to change that. But Jesus assured them that even better things would happen now if only they would go forward and proclaim Him risen!

Jesus sent His disciples out in the most scurrilous of times to heal those afflicted with doubt and grief, to encourage those who felt all was lost, to lift up those who felt dismayed, to give hope to the dying, to proclaim victory to those whose faith was faltering.

They would be guarded by God’s power, fueled by their faith. But first, they would need to enter boldly into a brave new world, a different world, a changed world, to be stability in a culture in flux.

Peter, one of the most creative leaders of the new movement we now call the early church, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and his letters to those hiding in their homes:

“You have a pure and enduring inheritance that cannot perish –an inheritance that is presently kept safe in heaven for you. Through his faithfulness, you are guarded by God’s power so that you can receive the salvation he is ready to reveal in the last time. You now rejoice in this hope, even if it’s necessary for you to be distressed for a short time by various trials…..Even though you don’t see him now, you trust him and so rejoice with a glorious joy that is too much for words. You are receiving the goals of your faith: your salvation.” (1 Peter 1)

We may not see God around us.

We may not see the wounds in Jesus’ hands and side the way Thomas needed to see.

We may not hear Jesus’ voice in real time.

We may not see Him face to face in the way His disciples did when he walked this earth so long ago.

But that doesn’t mean His power isn’t there.

Like our invisible viral foe, Jesus’ power is there. Jesus appears to us in our locked homes and in our distress in the most astonishing, loving, healing, creative ways we can possibly imagine, filling us with hope, placing words of wisdom and proclamation into our mouths, and bolstering us up, so that we can create peace and joy even in the midst of a changing world.

Jesus did many signs John tells us, signs that were never even recorded in the gospels. But what was recorded was done so, “so you will believe that Jesus is Messiah, God’s Son, so you may have life in His name.” (John 20:30-31)

Jesus is still doing miracles all around you. Just look at the energy of every first responder. Just look at the vitality of your online churches. Just look at the inspiration of your celebrities and heroes. Just look at the unity of a world united against a common foe.

God’s Spirit is alive and kicking. And so are we.

In this time of Easter, may you continue to be uplifted, engaged, energized, and sent. I wish you creativity, joy, hope, and impetus to make your faith count, to invest in your future and in others.

For in a world when monetary investments are lost and material things are scarce, relationships are everything. Human life, eternal life means everything.

Gold is for hoarding. Faith is for sharing.

May God’s blessings be upon you. Or as Jesus said to His disciples in that locked room: “Peace be with you.”