Behind Locked Doors

As I sat and listened in church this morning I was reminded of that great sub-genre of the mystery writers- the Locked Door Mystery. The police or investigators face a death of someone in a room that is clearly locked from the inside. There is no way a killer could have done the deed and left. At least not using normal means. There is always a trick or some sneaky thing that solves the mystery.

The difference with this morning's Gospel is that the locked door didn't work. Well, I guess it did. But it failed in the way it needed to fail. The apostles were locked behind their fears and uncertainties and misconceptions. They sat there pondering a mystery- an empty tomb mystery. That and some unusual sightings of their teacher they knew died and was placed in that now empty tomb.

No wonder their door was locked. Strange, other-worldly things going on. These were not some modern reasoned and rational people. They believed in things that we would laugh at today. That, and the all-too-real-and-rational authorities who might be after them- and you have a locked door.

The mystery though was not the sightings or rumors or empty tomb. The mystery came and stood before them without opening the door. The mystery- or better- The Mystery came into their room and stood there with them breathing the Holy Breath onto and into them. Shalom Aleichem!

Never had that greeting sounded so filled with meaning. It no longer sounded like the daily greeting. It sounded like the blessing it was always meant to be. Shalom Aleichem! he repeated.

And the mystery became irrelevant. The Mystery of God stood before them in person. No locked doors can keep him out.

But sadly we don't often even know He's there. At least I tend not to notice. I get busy with my fears or joys, my dreams or nightmares, my ways of doing things or my ways of hiding from doing them. I lock the door and ignore the possibilities around me.

I keep looking for answers to my mysteries instead of seeing Him who is both the Mystery and the Answer. For it is in giving up the ways I want- in becoming powerless in the face of the greatest Mystery that I can never solve or explain or even begin to imagine. What I can do, though, is keep my soul open to see Him when He is there. Listen when he greets me in words that are as common as the daily rising of the sun- and yet as fresh as each sunrise itself.

Shalom. Shalom Aleichem.