April 12, 2026 John 20:19–31 Scripture In A Time of Fear, Division, and Uncertainty

The Gospel tells us that the disciples are gathered behind locked doors “for fear.” Fear is the atmosphere of the room. Fear is the reason the doors are shut. Fear is what shapes their imagination of the future.

And then, without the doors opening, Jesus stands among them saying “Peace be with you.”

It is difficult to read this passage today without hearing echoes of our own fear and uncertainty framing so much of public life. Escalating geopolitical tensions, particularly the threat of military conflict with Iran and the resulting economic instability, have stirred global anxiety and shaken markets. 

Domestically, debates over public safety, youth unrest, and the balance between enforcement and care reveal a society unsure how to hold together its most vulnerable members. Politically, sharp divisions over budgets, governance, and national direction deepen a sense that we are living behind locked doors of mistrust and suspicion.

The disciples would understand this atmosphere.

They, too, were living in the aftermath of violence, disillusionment, and shattered expectations. The world they trusted collapsed at the cross, through brutal authority.  Hope was fragile. The community had scattered.

And so they locked the doors. Jesus does not wait for the disciples to become brave. He does not ask them to unlock the doors first. He enters as they are, fearful and confused.

This matters because our national assumption seems to be that fear must be mastered before peace can be known. That security must always come first. Regardless of cost certain nations nation must never be trusted with a nuclear weapon. We assume that strength must precede reconciliation. This also comes with the assumption that the side with strength holds moral high ground over its opponents.

The resurrection changes assumptions. Peace is not the reward for overcoming fear.
Peace is the gift given within fear. “Peace be with you” is not a calming slogan so much as a disruptive presence. It interrupts the logic of anxiety that dominates both ancient Jerusalem and modern America.

Jesus shows them his hands and his side. The risen Christ is not unmarked. Resurrection transforms violence. Jesus' wounds remain visible as testimonies of love that endured suffering.

In a time when our national life is marked by deep wounds, the temptation is either to deny wounds or weaponize them. But the Gospel offers a third way: To reveal wounds without letting them define the future. The body of Christ still bears scars, and yet speaks peace.

Thomas refuses secondhand faith. He wants to see. He wants to touch. He wants something real. Jesus does not reject him. This is crucial in a moment when many people are skeptical of the authority of institutions. When trust has eroded, doubt is not a failure; it is often a form of integrity. Thomas represents everyone who must say “I need something more than words.”

And Jesus responds not with condemnation, but with invitation.“Put your finger here.” The resurrection is not fragile. It can withstand scrutiny. It can meet us in our questions.

After speaking peace, Jesus says: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” This is the turning point where the disciples aren't just comforted, they are commissioned, rather than falling to the temptation either to retreat or to mirror the hostility of the world. Instead they are called to be people who have received peace even in systems shaped by fear.

Jesus breathes on them. And, like Creator's Easter service, this echoes Genesis, that breath of God that gives life. In the resurrection, a new creation begins through presence; through peace, and forgiveness.

Pastor Steve preached an astounding sermon on how important it was for us to bear witness to the Gospel's beloved story. He opened with the Artemis II Flyby story as a de facto Children's Sermon. He preached that we accept the news story as true even if we did not witness the event ourselves. 

We are not so different from those first disciples. We know the locked door, but Jesus is not stopped by locked doors. When we are fearful he forever sends Christians out with his assuring “Peace be with you.”

Sermon 

April 2, 2926 The Easter Triduum (or Sacred Triduum) Maundy Thursday - Mandatum Novum

Maundy Thursday always begins at the table and never stays there 

Last year I remember Pastor Emillie gave us a poem by a favorite poet of hers, Jan Richardson. It is called Circle of Grace and captures a very particular, special piece of communion that often eludes us, and it is worth talking about on this day when we commemorate that first table. 

 Blessing the Bread, the Cup
Let us bless the bread that gives itself to us
with its terrible weight, its infinite grace.

Let us bless the cup poured out for us
with a love that makes us anew.
Let us gather around these gifts
simply given and deeply blessed.
And let us go bearing the bread, carrying the cup,
laying the table within a hungering world.

Jan Richardson’s blessing names what we are almost afraid to say aloud: the bread comes to us with a terrible weight and an infinite grace. It is not light, sentimental fellowship. It is a costly presence. This is a table already leaning toward the cross.

And yet, year after year in your reflections, what emerges most powerfully is how the table keeps reappearing as more than a ritual of remembering, but as a living, contested space.

At Creator, that space is reclaimed in small, embodied ways: hands offering bread to one another, water poured over tired feet, scripture spoken in many voices instead of one. These are not just liturgical choices; they are theological claims. They say that the commandment, mandatum novum, is not an idea to be admired but an action to be practiced. Love must take on weight. It must kneel. It must touch.

And perhaps nowhere is that clearer than in the question that keeps echoing through all the Maundy Thrusdays I have experienced. Did Jesus wash Judas’ feet?

Scholars can debate the textual history of John’s Gospel, but the deeper question is not historical. For me this question is spiritual. If the love revealed at the table excludes the betrayer, then it is no longer the love that goes to the cross. The logic of Maundy Thursday collapses unless it includes the one who will walk out into the night.

Add to this the basin and towel, which become more than symbols. They become a crisis of recognition. Who is still at the table that I might prefer to exclude?
Whose feet would I quietly pass over?

Because there are other tables being built; louder, more public ones, where the language of faith is fused with power, identity, and exclusion. Bibles wrapped in flags. Accusations hurled in the name of righteousness. Claims of persecution that echo the story of Jesus while bypassing its substance.

Here Maundy Thursday becomes clarifying.

Jesus does not seize power. He does not weaponize scripture or call down judgment; he kneels in service. Most strikingly, he offers no promise of retribution to his followers. Pastor Steve reminded us that victory over enemies comes in renewed fellowship. The risen Christ is recognized not in domination, but in the breaking of bread.

That is the quiet revolution of this night.

It exposes how easily the table can be distorted into a boundary marker, who is in, who is out, who is pure, who is condemned. And it calls the church back to something far more demanding: a table that is carried into a hungering world, not guarded against it.

This is why the stripping of the altar remains such a powerful counterpoint. Everything is taken away, ornament, certainty, even the sense of presence. What remains is absence, vulnerability, and a question: What, of all we have built, truly belongs to the love Jesus commanded?

We are living that question in real time, especially in this season of transition, of calling new leadership, of discerning what to keep and what to release. In that sense, Maundy Thursday is not just a remembrance. It is a diagnosis revealing what is essential.

And perhaps that is where Richardson’s blessing lands most deeply:

Let us go bearing the bread, carrying the cup,
laying the table within a hungering world.

Not defending it. Not branding it, but bearing it as something fragile, costly, and alive. Because the truest sign that we have understood Maundy Thursday is not what happens at the altar. It is whether, when we rise from the table, we are willing to kneel.

Tonight's Maundy Thursday service reminded me of how much Creator worship has changed our worship over the years and what we still bring to services we feel is important. Susan provided beautiful banners behind the altar. Steve  and Claudia brought a pitcher and basin as a visual aid to remember foot washing. Pastor Emillie put together a liturgy meaningful to her and the congregation. Bill added to the reverence of the night with his inspired playing. 

This is a reflection of the love Jesus commanded. 

Service Recording 

Jan 4, 2026: Worship Second Sunday of Christmas: Come and See While We Move to Walk the Talk

Today is the Second Sunday of Christmas and, as Pastor Steve pointed out, it is the Eleventh Day of Christmas. Also, Epiphany, on January 6, marks the beginning of a new season in the lectionary year. A star was added to the banner as our Epiphany reminder.  Bill Berry was accomplished, and he expertly provided the piano accompaniment for the congregation today.

Pastor Steve gave a persuasive plea through his sermon. He first pointed out how much we wish to dwell more on the Christmas story itself and learn more details about Jesus' early life. That is not what is found in the Book of John. After one of John's disciples exclaims, "Look, here is the Lamb of God," the man cannot answer Jesus' question about what he is looking for, but asks another question to Jesus, "Where are you staying?' The response is, "Come and see." And John's disciples immediately follow Jesus without recording any hesitation. 

As followers of Jesus, we are invited to do the same as we live our lives. Our faith that Jesus Christ, the messiah, is now found and present in each of us, isn't the best testimony to offer, is to immediately walk our talk?

Service  After worship, Paul and Debi shared their learning from an Oregon Synod visit to Palestine and showed a powerful video, Munther Isaac's Sermon to the West, There was a discussion afterwards about our Lutheran Christian siblings in Palestine. This was another reminder of what is going on in Palestine following after the Wednesday Advent Sumud reflection in December. Isaac made a plea that any stance condoning any coercive power to influence people as part of God’s will must be tested at the cross.

Bethlehem Institute for Peace and Justice 

Wednesday Reflection on today's scripture 

June 1, 2025 - Being Clothed in Christ Erases Hierarchies

Pastor Steve preached today. The Creator congregation congratulated him on the 50th Anniversary of his Ordination. There was a celebratory feeling that the congregation had, even as the Gospel starts with Paul voicing his frustration with the Galatians.

The apostle Paul does not hold back his words, “You foolish Galatians!” he begins. It grabs our attention as it should. Paul is frustrated, not because the Galatians are evil or lost, but because they are turning away from the radical grace they once believed in and replacing it with bondage, the Spirit with law, and faith with works. They’ve forgotten the heart of the gospel.

In Christ, we are justified by faith, not by what we do, but by who God is. Not by where we come from, but by who claims us. Not by what separates us, but by what unites us.

Paul calls out a dangerous trend: the Galatians are returning to a religion of rules. They perform as if righteousness can be earned by observing the law. Paul says, “Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard?”

In other words, Paul is clear, this gift isn't earned but received. This is a crucial reminder for us, too. In a world driven by performance, merit, and achievement, the gospel offers a radical alternative: You are already enough in Christ. We don’t earn God’s love or prove our worth. Instead, we discover it has already been given.

Before faith came, Paul says, “we were imprisoned and guarded under the law.” That might sound harsh, but Paul is speaking about a spiritual reality: living under the law is like being locked in a mindset where we’re always falling short.

Now we come to one of the most powerful passages in all of Scripture:

“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

This is not just beautiful, it’s revolutionary.

Paul is not erasing our identities. He’s erasing the hierarchies we’ve built around them. He’s not saying we cease to be different. He’s saying our differences no longer divide us.  In a world still marked by racism, sexism, classism, and exclusion of LGBTQ+ people from some churches, these words are a divine disruption. They call the Church not just to preach unity but to embody it.

When we are clothed in Christ, we don’t all become the same; we all become sacred. Beloved and Equal.

Galatians 3 is not just about ancient arguments over circumcision and Jewish law. It’s about every system, every theology, every boundary that seeks to keep some people “in” and others “out.” 

And Paul says here: in Christ, the gates are wide open.

There is a story in the Hasidic tradition about the beloved Rabbi Zusya. As he lay on his deathbed, his students gathered around him and found him weeping. They were surprised and said "Rabbi, why are you so afraid? You have lived a life of wisdom and kindness. Surely you have no reason to fear meeting God.".

Zusya replied, “I am not afraid that God will ask me, ‘Why were you not Moses?’ I am afraid God will ask me, 'Why were you not Zusya?'"

This teaching holds a mirror to the spiritual task we all share: to become who we truly are.