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[Sermon] Dangerous People

Updated: Apr 16

Pastor Hector Garfias-Toledo



The world is full of forces working to push us into locked rooms — into isolation, fear, and despair. We know them well: the relentless news cycle, the politics of division, the weight of everything that feels wrong and broken. Into that reality, the risen Christ walks through every locked door and every barrier we've built or had built around us. And the people who encounter him don't just find comfort — they find freedom. Pastor Hector reframes a familiar figure in this story: Thomas may not be "the doubter" at all, but the one who refused to hide in the first place — the one who stayed out in the world because he hadn't given up on it. Resurrection people, it turns out, are dangerous — not because they fight back, but because no power on earth can lock them in the dark again.


Sermon Transcript

From YouTube's automatic captions, lightly edited by AI for readability.


Grace to you and peace from Aba — Father, Mother, Creator, our Parents — and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is risen! And the people of God say: He is risen indeed. Hallelujah.

 

Well, that is exactly what we continue to celebrate this week, as I was telling our young worshippers. But at the same time, my siblings, I was thinking this week — it's hard to believe. How does this message of the resurrection make sense in the world that we are living in?

 

Conversations out there, what people tell me, what I hear people talking about — comments like, "This is just too much." "This situation is driving me crazy." "I'm not okay with everything that I hear and everything that I learn and everything that I am told by the news and by others." "It's impossible to be fine when I hear crazy things."

 

How are we doing? And what does it mean that the Lord Jesus is risen indeed?

 

As I look and try to understand and make sense of all of this, one of the things that I feel is that these forces are pulling us and pushing us down constantly. To be honest, it turns a little bit unbearable. It's a constant battle every day. We try to shake all this bad news, all this depressing news, all this draining news off our minds and our hearts and our bodies — and they simply just stick to us, attach to us, and make us feel the weight of everything that is happening in our communities and in the world. It's tiring. It's life-sucking. You and I are exposed to this continuous propaganda that tosses us, pushes us to believe that we ought to suck it in and become part of this old order of death.

 

And that sounds like no good news. Because whether we like it or not, things that are not even happening within the borders of our country are affecting us in ways that — in the long term — will have effects in our lives: effects in our spiritual lives, in our physical lives, in our health, in our relationships, in our understanding of how we connect with other human beings.

 

Or perhaps, my siblings in Christ, today we are here — we are gathering in this place by the Spirit — and we are coming to this place with things in our hearts and things in our minds that are heavy, disorienting, discouraging. So maybe the question for us is: what forces are pulling us back into the tomb, or the locked rooms, in isolation and hopelessness?

 

These media news outlets — it's a real force, like a vortex that is sucking us, that doesn't allow us to see beyond ourselves. And yet, in the midst of this darkness, there is a light and there is a power: the power of the resurrection, that is greater than all these forces and cannot be stopped. And that is what grounds us. That is what gives us the strength. That is what gives us the life. That is what brings color to this life that seems to be dark.

 

In the Gospel according to John — especially this passage that we read today, chapter 20:19–31 — this passage is traditionally interpreted, I believe, in three main ways. Let me ask you this: how do you remember that this passage is interpreted when we talk about Thomas? What is the adjective that we give to Thomas?

 

"Doubting Thomas." That's one way. I mean, we can talk about how doubtful Thomas was. A second thing is: what happened to the disciples? They are hiding. Hiding. Why? Because they are afraid, right? So we can spend the whole time talking about how fearful they were, how they didn't believe, how they were just behind doors. Or we can talk about Jesus. And what can we say about Jesus?

 

He is risen. What else? He can be anywhere. He cares. He brings peace. Or — a Jesus that has a different nature from the Jesus that was walking and eating and having parties with people who nobody liked. And now, suddenly, even though there are walls and doors and windows and locks — guess what? He can go through.

 

So we can spend a lot of time talking about these different interpretations, but today I want to propose something to you. I invite you to think, to really enter the story, and to allow the holy imagination to speak to you in a different way about what resurrection may mean for you in your daily lives — for you in this world, in a context like the one I was describing a few minutes ago.

 

All these interpretations that we just talked about shed light and a powerful message of hope. There is no doubt. But when we read back in the Gospel according to John, there is this silver lining of the story about Jesus that tells us that there is nothing that can stop God's intent to bring life out of death and despair. Go through all the chapters of the Gospel according to John, and from the beginning we will see that St. John the Evangelist takes us back to the very beginning — because he says, "In the beginning was God," making reference to Genesis, when there was chaos — to remind us that everything came into being, into life, because of God's word.

 

Nothing can stop the Lord from finding us and transforming us into signs that point to the power of God in Jesus, who is risen. The locked doors that we were talking about are not just a sign of the fear of the disciples. I believe that these doors are a metaphor for what oppression does to us, to all people. It pushes us into the dark and cold places and tombs of a spiritual and relational death. We know that when we hit bottom, when we lose hope, when we feel hopeless and helpless, one of the things that we do as human beings is to look for isolation, loneliness, and detachment.

 

These doors remind us, my siblings in Christ, that all these forces around us — making us believe that we are not worthy, that we are just the instruments of the powers to tear apart communities and societies — what they lead us to, what they push us toward, is these dark and cold spaces, these tombs of a spiritual and relational death.

 

But the message comes again to me: nothing could stop Jesus from showing us God's love. Not the fame that he could claim when he entered Jerusalem on a donkey and everybody was singing and shouting "Hallelujah!" to him. Not the stone that was blocking the tomb. Not the walls or the doors or the locks of the house where the disciples were could stop Jesus from showing up. And moreover, not even the fear, the disbelief, and the confusion that the disciples were experiencing could stop Jesus from coming to bring peace and to bring light and to bring life.

 

The powers that killed Jesus wanted the disciples — and want us today — to stay in that room, locked in silence. Jesus's appearance is a prison break. It is a sign of liberation. And that is what, in my view and in my belief, terrifies the powerful in this world — those whose reaction is to punish people and push people back into the dark room, into division and into hate.

 

The powers wanted the disciples hiding in despair, in silence. But Jesus proves that God's intent cannot be entombed — that there is no stone that will prevent Jesus from coming to take us out.

 

Sometimes I feel, my siblings in Christ, that these forces around us — everything that is telling us how much we need to hate each other and how much we need to divide ourselves — is this force from the tomb trying to pull us back into the tomb, to bring us into that space of loneliness and scarcity. And then on the other hand, there is this voice from the outside telling us: "Come out. Come and join me. Come and live in the abundant life that God can give you."

 

Resurrection people are dangerous — and you and I are the resurrection people. But we are not dangerous because we are paying eye for eye and tooth for tooth. Not because we are taking revenge on those who have hurt us. The resurrection people are dangerous because they are free. And these powers will never be able to hold them back in the tomb of darkness and despair. Fear does not control us. Death does not define us. And love is stronger than coercion.

 

So, my siblings in Christ, here is where I want you to think a little bit differently about this passage.

 

Maybe Thomas is not "the doubter," but the one who wrestled with such forces. Where was he when Jesus appeared the first time?

 

In the room? Outside? What was he doing? The Bible doesn't tell us. The Bible tells us that he was not with them. Was he hiding in another room? Maybe his own room. Maybe he didn't like the disciples — I'm just thinking now. Or maybe he was living life.

 

Maybe he was able to be out there, instead of hiding, because he hadn't given up on community, on Jerusalem, and on the possibility that something was still unfolding.

 

See the difference?

 

And that's the way I want us to challenge ourselves. How can we be out there in the midst of these forces — not giving up on the community, on the place where God has called us to live, and on the possibility that something is still unfolding? That is the resurrection people. That is why we are called to be dangerous. And I invite you today to be dangerous in this world — to the point that our confidence ensures that nothing is going to scare us and put us back in the darkness of the tomb. We are out there, speaking about life and living in the same way that the Lord lived among us.

 

His confession — maybe it was the corroboration that he knew in his heart that Jesus was out there. Maybe when he came to Jesus, and Jesus showed him his hands and his side, this confession that we probably read normally as "My Lord and my God!" — almost like in a very pietistic way — I want to imagine that for Thomas, that was the corroboration: "Oh, my goodness, what I was believing all this time when I was out there — it is real, it is true, and now I know that I was not wrong. And therefore I am not going to be stopped in sharing that my Lord is alive and is with us and is for us and in us." Amen.

 

See the difference — and why you can be dangerous in this society. Because you are not going to be conformed to the powers that want us to be reduced to inhabitants of a cold and dark tomb forever.

 

And this is the good news: the resurrection is not only about Jesus leaving the grave. It is about Jesus entering our own grave to take us out into the world. Nothing can stop God's intent to bring life out of death.

 

And that is good news. And for that we say: thanks be to God. Amen.

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