There are some jokes that are just too terrible to tell from the pulpit. A pastor would have to be nuts to try to slip such a story by his congregation. For example, there is a story of a man who went to a psychiatrist one time with a sleep disorder. "Doc," he says, "I've been having trouble sleeping because of weird dreams. For example, last night I dreamed that I was a wigwam."

"Oh yes," the psychiatrist said. "That is terrible. Yes, yes indeed ... Please try very carefully to remember more and come back and see me next week."

So the next week the man returned. "Doc, it's gotten worse. Now I dreamed that I was a teepee. It was awful."

"Oh yes," the psychiatrist said. "That is terrible. But I do know now what your problem is. You are two tents."

Get it? Two tents — a wigwam and a teepee. Aren't you glad that I'd never start a sermon with such a terrible joke?

Well, the disciples of Jesus that first Easter Sunday were not just too tense — they were downright terrified. The picture we have of them from the gospel writers is of a frightened, discouraged, downhearted group of DISbelievers! The crucifixion of Jesus had done them in and no matter what anybody said to them, they could not be shook out of their grief and sorrow. Look at what the Bible says.

Early in the morning, Mary and the women visit the tomb of Jesus and are greeted by angels who announce to them that Jesus is alive. The women return to the disciples and tell them the news and how do the disciples respond? Luke tells us in chapter 24, verse 11, "But they [the disciples] would not believe the women because their words seemed to them like nonsense." Peter rushes to the tomb to see for himself and Luke says, "Peter went away wondering to himself what had happened."

John picks up the story for us today in the second half of chapter 20. He begins by saying, "When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week and the doors of the house where they met were locked for fear of the Jews." For fear of the Jews. Did you hear that? This is a timid, frightened group of followers. Everything has happened too fast for them. One moment the crowd is welcoming Jesus. And then just a few days later, he is arrested, put on trial, and crucified on a cross. The picture the Bible gives us is of a shell-shocked bunch of disciples who gather in hiding to mourn the death of their leader. They are living in fear of the dreaded knock on the door that will signal that they are next.

Fear shut them out and anxiety locked them up. A few years ago, W. H. Auden wrote a poem about modern life and called it, "The Age of Anxiety." That poem's name stuck. It soon became a byword for our modern times — The Age of Anxiety — because it is so true. Ours is a world that is anxious and afraid. Older people are afraid their health will fail them and their savings will run out. Younger people are afraid they won't have any savings for old age and they could care less about health. Some fear the future and others dread the past. College students are afraid they won't have a job when they get out and parents are afraid they'll never get out. Middle-agers wonder if their lives have amounted to anything and young people wonder if there's anything to strive for anyhow. And all of us live in an age of terrorism and random violence.

On a personal level, we fear sickness and the gnawing concern that as we grow older our bodies will give out. We fear diseases that have no cure and cures that have no effect. There are those who fear the new and others who dread the old. Some long to return to the past and others struggle to be free from it. But this is nothing compared to what the disciples faced that first Easter evening!

Their lives were in ruins. For three years they had devoted their lives to Jesus. They had left home and family, jobs and security, to follow him. They had seen him do wonders and cure the sick, raise the dead and proclaim the love of God. And what did it get him? A death on the cross! The worst of their fears had come true and now they found themselves caught in a whirlpool of anxiety. He was dead — their leader, their teacher, their rabbi, their Lord! They were left with only a nightmare of memories — a Passover meal that had become a nightmare with the revelation that one of their own would betray him. There was the dreamlike time in the Garden of Gethsemane that ended when the high priest's soldiers came with weapons to arrest him. Even Peter, the boldest of them all, even Peter's brave vows of loyalty were followed with words of denial. The mocking, the beating, the horror of his death had left the disciples a shell-shocked, frightened, disbelieving bunch whose worst fears seemed reality now.

Then suddenly, that first Easter evening everything changed. Suddenly, Jesus was with them, among them to soothe their fears — not with the knocking at the door that they so feared — not with a plea to be let in or a request that they open it for him. With all due respect to Holman Hunt and his famous painting of Jesus knocking on the door, Jesus didn't knock. He just came in. He loved these men too much to wait for them to open the door for him. As the old saying says, "Love laughs at our locks." He loved them with an undying love and no lock could keep him out. Boldly, persistently, powerfully, the risen Savior came back into their lives.

Now, think with me for a moment about what could have happened in those next few minutes. Jesus could have coldly surveyed this frightened bunch and could have begun a sarcastic review of their recent words and actions. "Let's see, Peter. Let me hear again what you said. ‘Though the world deny you, yet I will not.' Isn't that what you said? So what happened, big guy? How about you James and John? Can you drink the cup of suffering that I drink? Can you? Where were you guys?" He could have pierced each and every one of their hearts if he had wanted to. He could have thrown their cowardice in their faces. He could have held their denial up to them. He could have seared their hearts with their cowardly deeds, their faithlessness, and failure. But he didn't.

He didn't. Instead, he said, "Peace be with you." For that's what they needed most. That's what they lacked. They knew their failure. They knew how they had deserted him. They knew their denial, their cowardice, their sinfulness and they didn't need reminding of it. And he knew that, too.

What they needed was their lives, their thoughts, their hopes and dreams back again. They needed to be made whole. They needed to be released from their fears and set free from the guilt and anxiety that locked them in. They needed what only the Christ could give them — forgiveness, new hope, and a reason for living. And that's exactly what he did. He gave them peace. He set them free. He made them whole again. That's what the peace of Christ is all about — being restored to the goodness that God created us in, being made whole to dream about the future, being restored to live and love and laugh again. That's what Christ gave them because that's what they needed the most.

Fear not, he said. Fear not. How many times do we need to hear that? How many times do we find ourselves in the clutches of fear? Did you know that one Bible scholar has counted up the number of times the Bible says that exact phrase (Peace be with you.) and it is exactly 366 times — one time for every day of the year and even another left over for Leap Year! Fear not! That's God's message to us today. Fear not — for my peace is with you, too.

Remember, these are not atheists or agnostics that Jesus recruited. Now, they weren't religious scholars by any means, but surely they had some familiarity with the Hebrew scriptures. They would certainly have grown up reciting the words, "The Lord is my shepherd." They would have known about Joshua and Moses and the other heroes of the Old Testament. They would have been schooled to know that Lord is the rock of their salvation — and yet, when fear closed in upon them, they forgot all that. They had been with Jesus for three years, but when the anxiety of the cross came upon them, they acted as if he never existed.

In Charles Dickens' famous novel, A Tale of Two Cities, there was a man who had worked as a shoemaker in prison. After being released from prison, the injustice of his sentence was discovered, and he was reinstated as a nobleman, rich and secure. However, later in life whenever he ran into problems, he would retreat to his home, go down to a little dark room in the basement and make shoes. Under stress, he reverted to his old self.

And so it is with us. When troubles beset us, when difficulties come our way, we revert to our old selves, forget God's promises and act as if Jesus never existed. That's why a regular habit of worship, of scripture reading, and prayer is so important. By making it a regular part of our life, we imprint on our hearts the words of Jesus so that when troubles come our way and we are surrounded with difficulties, we will not flee from Jesus but run right back into his loving arms.

Peace be with you, Jesus says. Peace be with you. I have conquered death and the grave. Is there any bigger obstacle than that? I am the Lord of life and death and I will always be with you. Henry Ward Beecher once said, "Every morning has two handles to open the new day — one is the handle of anxiety and the other the handle of faith." The disciples grabbed anxiety and found themselves closed in behind locked doors, afraid and abandoned. Jesus opened the door of faith for them.

More than anything else, when Jesus appeared to the disciples behind those closed doors, he was saying to them, showing them, telling them in a way they could not misunderstand that there were no doors that could keep him out. There was no way they could ever be separated from him. There was no circumstance in which they would ever be alone.

That's the good news that God brings us today. There is no closed door that can keep the love of God away from us. There is no lock that can shut us apart from God. There is no dark room that God will not enter and there is no one that God does not love. That's the answer to any fear and the antidote to all anxiety. "Peace be with you," Jesus says. I don't care how bad tomorrow looks, how gloomy the prospects may seem, how dreadful the problem is, or how hopeless everything seems. Jesus says to us that with his presence, peace is possible.

Immediately after World War II, the well-known German pastor, Helmut Thielicke, stood to preach a sermon on the rubble of his bombed-out church in Berlin. He knew about fear. He knew about huddling behind closed doors. He himself had barely escaped the wrath of Adolf Hitler. Death was all around him. And yet, even in the midst of this despair and devastation, Thielicke could rejoice in God's love and say, "Where Christ is king, everything is changed. Eyes see differently and hearts no longer beat the same. And in every hard and difficult place, his hand will never let us go and he will always uphold. For the voice of Jesus is there to say, ‘Peace be with you.' "

There is hope for all of us in this Age of Anxiety. There is help when we feel like giving up. There is courage when we are tempted to hide. For there is one who can enter any room. There is one who can overcome any problem. There is one who can bring peace to every anxious heart. In fact, today he holds out his hands to us and shows us his side and says, "Peace be with you. Do not be doubting. But believe." In Jesus' name. Amen.