“I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10 Some sixty years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, when the disciples were remembering Jesus’ life and ministry, that is what they remembered seeing in him and hearing from him. “I have come that you might have abundant life.”
In the days since Easter, we have been encouraged to be part of an uprising of hope, an uprising of fellowship and discipleship, of worship and stewardship, an uprising filled with joy and possibility, when we work and worship together as a community of followers of the Way of Jesus.
On the day of Jesus’ crucifixion, the disciples fled to the upper room where they had gathered just the night before to share a meal with Jesus. They locked the door and thought they might never leave again, overwhelmed with sadness, in fear for their own lives. But then something happened. We can try all sorts of logical, scientific explanations for what happened in the resurrection. We can search for those same logical, scientific explanations for the wind and fire and speaking in many languages of Pentecost, which we celebrate next week. But we don’t need those explanations. We don’t need to know exactly what happened. All we need is to look at the lives of those disciples, who had been huddled in fear and grief behind locked doors.