Lectionary for April 27, 2025
Second Sunday of Easter
Acts 5:27-32; Psalm 118:14-29;
Revelation 1:4-8; John 20:19-31
I spend a fair amount of time as a volunteer “pray-er” on a prayer app. Thousands of strangers submit prayers for their health, relationships, finances or for the state of the world. One phrase that keeps coming up in the hundreds of requests that I have seen and prayed for is that God would “open the right door and shut the wrong doors.” This notion of God opening and shutting doors for God’s children is both ancient and biblical. In the lectionary readings for this week, we have two stories of God opening, or even bypassing, doors.
In the John passage, Jesus is beyond the use of doors. While all the disciples, except for Thomas, were gripped with fear and in hiding (20:19), Jesus suddenly stood among them. He showed his wounds to confirm that he had been resurrected, and all those present believed. Later, when Thomas returned from bravely going out to, presumably, get food and supplies for the frightened disciples, he wanted the same sign that the rest of them had been given. Jesus obliged. Again, the doors were shut (26). But every closed door is open to Jesus, and he stood among his disciples again, making sure to give the signs Thomas needed in order to believe. That is the point of this Gospel, after all, that the signs recorded therein would lead to belief and life (31).
In the Acts account, the disciples have been getting into good trouble. The disciples, filled with the zeal of God and the risen Jesus, have been performing signs and wonders. They healed the sick and exorcized demons. People brought the sick and oppressed to line Peter’s path, so that even his healing shadow might fall on those who needed restoration or release. As often happens when God blesses a particular ministry, other religious professionals felt jealous (5:17).
The Sadducees, unlike the Pharisees, didn’t believe in resurrection or demons (Acts 23:8). The apostles traveling around, freeing people from unclean spirits and demons in the name of a resurrected rabbi was more than they could stand. Jesus and his disciples sided with their enemies, the Pharisees. Remember, Jesus ate with Pharisees, and therefore was a Pharisee, or at least Pharisee-adjacent (Acts 7:36-50). His debates with Pharisees should be understood as in-group behavior, like how most of the people who I teach and debate with are Lutheran Christians, just like me. The Sadducees arrested Peter and those with him and threw them in jail.
This notion of God opening and shutting doors for God’s children is both ancient and biblical. In the lectionary readings for this week, we have two stories of God opening, or even bypassing, doors.
But during the night, an angel opened the prison doors and led them all out. The angel instructed the disciples to return to the temple area and tell the people the whole message of this life of Jesus. And that’s exactly what they did! When the high priest (a Sadducee) sent for the disciples in prison, the guards noted that they weren’t there and that all the doors were closed and locked (the polite angel was not born in a barn and apparently shut the doors after leading the disciples out). While they were confused as to where Peter and the others could have gone, someone noticed that the disciples were back in the temple courts, teaching about their resurrected messiah.
The guards arrested the disciples again (Acts 5:26), this time without violence because they were afraid of the people (note the power the people have to restrict the violence of officers). The high priest was indignant: “I told you to stop talking about Jesus, but you just keep talking about Jesus!” Peter and the apostles gave one of the best responses in the history of recorded communication: “We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him” (Acts 5:29-32).
Peter’s speech here is targeted to give maximum offense to the Sadducees: resurrection, exalting a human to God’s side and mention of the Spirit. Of course the Sadducees wanted to kill them! But look who stepped to their defense: a Pharisee named Gamaliel, who asked the council to consider that these men may have been sent by God (38-39). The high priests were convinced. They had the disciples flogged anyway but then opened the door for their public ministry in the temple compounds (42).
We often feel that doors are closing in our lives, in our careers, in our relationships. We can feel doors close on the hopes we had for how our communities could look different from the way they do now. This week’s lectionary passages insist that even when the situation looks the worst, there is no closed doorway that can be a barrier to God’s plans.
