How to unlock fear in your life?

UNLOCKING THE DOORS OF FEAR

Acts 2:1–11; John 20:19–23

Ten men huddled together in a locked room.  They spoke in whispers.  The doors were locked; the windows tight shut.  Their leader had been executed, and they feared they would be next. No one had formally called this meeting - fear had.  Fear was now their leader.  It gripped their throats and silenced their voices.  It froze their feet and paralyzed their will.  They had locked themselves in for safety, but in truth, they had imprisoned themselves with their worst enemy: fear itself.

Then Jesus came.  He broke through the very barriers meant to keep danger out.  He stood among them, not as a ghost, not as a memory, but alive.  The doors hadn't opened,  but He was there. Just as He had broken free from the tomb, He now entered their tomb of terror.  The fortress they had built for safety was in fact a cell, and He came not to condemn them for their fear, but to set them free from it.

How did He do this?  First, Jesus helped them face their fear. Imagine their astonishment, “How did He get in here?”  they must have wondered.  But more than that: “How did He get out of the tomb?”  Jesus came to show them that neither death nor the fear of death could bind Him.  Why?  Because His trust in the Father was absolute, and His sense of mission was unshakable.

Jesus knew that we are not truly alive until we are ready to die - not in despair, but in purpose.  Until we have something worth dying for, we have nothing heroic to live for.  It was the disciples, not Jesus, who were entombed.  And now, the risen Christ came to roll away their stone.

His very presence addressed their deepest fears:

They feared that their failure in His final hours had disqualified them forever, but He came speaking peace.
They feared death had the last word, but Jesus stood before them, the Living Word.
They feared earthly powers, but Jesus revealed the greater authority of His Father.
They feared they were seeing a ghost, but He showed them His hands and His side.  This was the Crucified One, truly risen.
Will you let the risen Jesus stand in the midst of your fears?  Let Him expose fear for the coward it is.  Fear is often at the root of our failures:

Cheating is fear of failure.
Greed is fear that God won’t provide.
Lying is fear of being truly known.
Fear is what makes a bird walk when it could fly, what keeps a ship moored when it was made for the sea, what causes a Church to crawl when it was born to run.
The epitaph of some lives won’t read: They tried and failed, but: They were afraid.

A 100-year-old woman was once asked what she had learned in life.  She replied, “My only regret is that I didn’t do many things, because I was afraid.”

But Jesus doesn’t just release us from fear.  He gives us a mission.

He didn’t enter the room just to show He could get in.  He came to show them the way out.  The world outside that locked room needed them.  And He gave them something to do that was greater than anything they had feared: “As the Father sent me, so I send you.”  He sent them to announce forgiveness, to unlock the doors of guilt and shame in others’ lives.  And who better to speak of forgiveness than men who had run away and been forgiven?

To carry out this mission, Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit upon them.  This is the same breath that gave life in Eden, the same wind that filled the upper room on Pentecost.  It is the Spirit who sets the sails of the Church and sends her out into the deep.

Lord Jesus, on this Pentecost day, thank You for breaking into our fears.  Thank You for calling us out of hiding and into mission.  Fill us with Your Spirit, and send us with the breath of Your peace.  Unlock our doors.  Unfurl our sails.  And lead us into the world You died to save.  Amen.

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