Locked Behind Doors

I couldn't move on from the first sentence of today's lectionary reading;

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” John 20:19

Rarely am I afraid. Rarely do I allow myself to fear. I prefer the security and strengths of facades perhaps rather than the fragility and weakness of truth.

Perhaps in the narrative I am the powerful. I am searching from house to house for the weak, for those who threaten the foundations upon which my strength is derived, for those who huddle in fear and truth.

And yet Christ appears and reassures the fearful and fragile. He is present with those who dare to understand the truth and all its implications. Perhaps this is where I should be.

In the Catholic University of San Salvador the Jesuit Community has established a chapel. When one enters it is full of the vivid colour and shape of Salvadoran artists. It is full of life and celebration. But as one leaves the chapel one sees for the first time the stations of the cross that hang on the back wall of the chapel. They are the remarkable and horrifying images of torture that the people of El Salvador have experienced drawn by Roberto Huezo. In hanging the images, Jon Sobrino reminds us, that we can enjoy the fellowship of Christian community during worship as long as we leave recognising the world in which we live.

Perhaps in these places, behind locked doors and in the scars of our world and our own lives, Christ's words of peace can still be heard. If only we were there to hear them.

Stations of the Cross in The University's Chapel