Rev. Doug Floyd

Easter 2
Rev. Doug Floyd
1 Peter 1:1-9, John 20:19-31

The disciples have gathered in the upper room behind a locked door. They are afraid. They ran away in fear. They denied Christ in fear. Now they grieve in fear. Yet, they grieve together.

Jesus gathered them. He called them at the start of His ministry, and they’ve become a community, a family.

God gathers His people. In ancient Israel, the sound of the trumpet gathered the people for a feast, for worship, and even for war. Before the sounding of the trumpet, God gathered His people in Egypt. He led them out of the land of slavery and to the land of promise.

Today in our Gospel reading, the disciples continue to gather, and Jesus meets them there. Hans Urs Von Balthasar writes, “At its deepest level this community’s faith in Jesus Christ was held together by the commonly celebrated Eucharist, for it is here that the believers finally comprehend that this community is not something they have constructed by themselves on a purely human level, rather that it is an institution of the Lord. Only in him and through him do they together constitute the Church, in which each individual’s faith is strengthened by the faith of all the others, like many strands twisted together to make one rope.”[1]

Even in their doubt and fear, Jesus has gathered the disciples. He steps into their midst and says, “Peace be with you.” Even in our doubt and fear, Jesus gathers us today, speaking, “Peace be with you.” We extend His blessing of peace to one another. Our faith in Christ is strengthened by one another. In chapter two of 1 Peter, we read that we are “living stones” being built into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood.

With this image of us as a community being built into a house of the Lord, let us think about a house. A house contains relationships. The house bears witness to these relationships through pictures, meals, conversations, and even furniture.

Think about pictures on the wall and in photo albums or on our media devices. They tell the story of a life, the story of the family. Different ages. Maybe grandparents, great grandparents.

A house also bears witness to these relationships through meals. Through conversations. And even through the arrangement of furniture. If you had a single chair sitting in front of the fireplace, it’s a very different communication than if you have maybe chairs in a circle or somehow in a semicircle.

The furniture speaks. To the movement within the house.

Children learn invaluable life lessons over meals. With their parents, I used to, I think I wrote an essay years ago on how, we learned the first elements of liturgy in a meal. And even people who don’t like the word liturgy, have learned liturgical movement within a meal.

You pray. There’s certain things you do. There’s an order of service in the meal. There are certain things you do and certain things you don’t do during the meal, depending on the family.

When I went to visit my aunt and uncle as a child, we were not allowed to put our elbows on the table. I was a little bit fearful of going to their house because I didn’t know their rules very well. I might break them.

In my house, there was another a different rule, an unspoken rule, Kelly discovered when we got together. You did not interrupt my dad when he was telling a story. Very different kind of rule.

If you wanted the salt, you pointed to it. Later Kelly asked, why was everybody pointing? I said, because we cannot interrupt my dad’s story. If we do, he’ll say, well, I guess you’re not interested. So even those who live alone actually carry the stories and memories of friends and family. So even a person who lives alone, still carries remembrance of community.

A large empty house can become a haunt. When I was in high school a whole group of us drove out to the country to a haunted house. What we actually saw was an abandoned house. It was haunted because people had lived there at one time and no longer lived there, and it was empty, completely abandoned. That is a haunt.

Proverbs 9 tells us about a perfect house.

“Wisdom has built her house;
she has hewn her seven pillars.
2 She has slaughtered her beasts; she has mixed her wine;
she has also set her table.
3 She has sent out her young women to call
from the highest places in the town,
4 ”Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!”
To him who lacks sense she says,
5 ”Come, eat of my bread
and drink of the wine I have mixed.
6 Leave your simple ways, and live,
and walk in the way of insight.”[2]

Interesting. This picture of Wisdom’s home has seven pillars, which indicates perfection or completion. People are invited to this house for wisdom. She has prepared them a meal, and when they come, they eat and drink.

This should recall another story. Jesus tells the story of a king who throws a banquet and sends his servants out to the highways and byways to invite people to come. Jesus first miracle is at a wedding feast. He eats with people, and they are changed. Consider Zacheus, or Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. He feeds thousands of people. And he feeds a handful. Consider the disciples. He teaches them wisdom during meals.

Together, we are becoming the house of the Lord. That’s what Peter is telling us in his letter. Wisdom’s perfect house.

We are becoming that house of wisdom. With the 7 pillars. where they come and eat, and they fellowship. Every week we gather and we partake of the meal Christ gave us.

In some weeks, we partake of more than that. In fact, I think some people have already partaken of it look like fudge or something in there. So we partake of all sorts of wonderful things.

We eat and drink Christ’s very life. And he ministers to each one of us through each one of us. Like the disciples, we may come weary, discouraged, fearful, even tempted to lock the door.

But Christ will come. He shows up in our midst. He welcomes us to the feast, to the house of wisdom.

To the community of wisdom. I’ll just throw this in one other note about the wise woman. You notice there’s 2 women in Proverbs, the wise woman, and the prostitute or the whore.

Where do those women show up again? In Revelation? The New Jerusalem, and Babylon.

Two cities. Two women. One place is where you feast and become a community, and the other places where you’re used up and eventually are destroyed.

It is here, in this little community, that we learn to bear one another’s burdens, to serve one another, to pray for healing and restoration for one another. It is here that we’re commissioned.

Christ says, as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. Every time we dismiss at the end of the service. There’s some form of sending. It is here that we learn to bear one another’s burdens, to serve one another, to pray for healing and restoration for one another. It is here that we are commissioned. Jesus says to us, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”[3]

We’re the community that Christ has gathered, and we’re part of a larger community. So many of you meet with people from other churches or maybe online with people from around the world. I’ve met with Russ and Heidi and people in Europe and other places online before, talking about their various mission work.

And in that those communities that we participate in, once again, Christ is present, he’s speaking, encouraging us, stirring us. So it is in the community of Christ that we encounter the Risen One, who has “caused us born again to a living hope through the resurrection.”[4] Then in verses 8 and 9, Peter says,

“Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:8–9, ESV)

Peter is writing to a people who face struggle in the culture. At different times, the church will face harsher suffering and lesser suffering. Sometimes it’s simply social suffering and sometimes it’s martyrdom. Now, unlike the disciples in our gospel reading, these Christians who are gathering, do not physically see Jesus or touch Him, as Thomas did.

They experience his encouragement in love. Thus, they rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. Their little communities of faith have become houses where God dwells, where they feast in God’s wisdom, where they’re strengthened in the Eucharist.

In spite of their challenges, Unlike the disciples in our gospel reading, these Christians do not physically see Jesus or touch Him as Thomas did. He is not absent. They believe in Him. They encounter Him. They experience His encouragement and love. Thus, they rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.

Their little communities of faith have become houses where God dwells, where they feast in God’s Wisdom, where they are strengthened in the Eucharist, where Christ reveals Himself through fellow believers around them.

I did not enjoy church as a teenager. For some reason, my parents chose to go to an angry church always railing against the world. In college, my sister suggested that her and I go to a church that had a college ministry. From the moment we stepped through the doors, we stepped into a community of joy, a house of wisdom, a house of God. We built deep friendships with the people around us, which reshaped the trajectory of my life. The preaching was good, but what changed me was the community.

Among these saints, I learned that our Christian walk is not a dour struggle through the wastelands of a sinful world. It is a joy-filled dance amidst a world at odds with Christ. Peter is encouraging us today that Christ is present and He will sustain us.

During the extended Easter season, we will keep returning to I Peter. He is instructing God’s people on how to walk out their faith in the midst of struggles and suffering of life. Christ is present among even though we have not seen Him as Peter and the disciples did. But we do hear Him in the Scriptures, we do taste Him in the Eucharist, we do encounter Him in one another as His gifts and His life our poured out in our midst.

Today let us offer back to Him in worship our worries, our failures, our weaknesses, our griefs, and our hopes. Let us rejoice in His faithful love poured out in our lives.

[1] Hans Urs von Balthasar, Light of the Word: Brief Reflections on the Sunday Readings, trans. Dennis D. Martin (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 74.

[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2025), Pr 9:1–6.

[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2025), Jn 20:21.

[4] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2025), 1 Pe 1:3.