What a confusing time for those disciples!
Gathered together in a hidden room somewhere in Jerusalem. Trying to process all that had happened these last few days and not being quite able to do it.
There was the trauma of the lynch mob plucking Jesus out from their midst. The days of shock that followed. And now there were rumours that Jesus had risen from the dead. It was all too much. So there they sat.

The bible doesn't tell for sure what happened in the time between the crucifixion and this gathering of the disciples. Where did they all go? What did they do? What were they thinking? Who were they with on Saturday? We don't know for sure. We can do a bit of detective work. And what we find is this:
Mark 14.50-52 - "Then everyone deserted him and fled..." - one even dropping his clothes and fleeing naked.
Luke 22.54-62 - Peter follows at a distance, denies Jesus, and heads out humiliated and weeping.
Luke 23.56 - The women had gone to their homes to prepare embalming spices.
John 20.2 - Mary Magdalene sees Jesus and reports this to Peter and John, who were together. The others aren't mentioned.

We get the sense of a scattered, discouraged, defeated bunch.
Those who had but a few days ago shared the family-oriented Passover meal, a meal that bound them tightly together - they were now scattered, separated from each other and from their Master.
But now on Sunday evening they are gathered together.

That's remarkable in itself - that they are together, I mean. This wasn't the case a couple of days ago. When the mob came to grab Jesus, this stalwart group of disciples, who had declared on a couple of occasions that they would be faithful to the end, had scattered. Left the boss holding the bag. Like rabbits scooting out of a wheat field when the combine comes through. Separated, running in a dozen different directions.

They had heard their master tell them:
"This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written, 'I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.'" [Matthew 26.31]
They had protested that this would never happen - but now, well, here it was.
Get home, fast.
Lock the door and pull the shades.
Sit quietly. Breathing hard. Nightmare memories.

In time they quiet down. The gloom begins to settle in.
They realize that they did it - they blew it, as bad as could ever be!
Their promise of loyalty to Jesus, laudable intentions, gone.
The very thing they had so vehemently swore they would NEVER do was precisely the thing they ended up doing!

Can you imagine how they must have felt at that point?

I'm sure you can if you stop to think about it.
Perhaps you've borrowed the car with the assurance you'll drive carefully. But a little too much speed and you rearrange the front end. Now you're afraid to go home.
Or someone in the class was being picked on by others and you found yourself taking part in it. You leave and suddenly realize, red-faced what you did, not sure how you could face this individual ever again. So you try to avoid her as long as possible.
The guilt is strong, overwhelming. You know it. You blew it. No sense beating around the bush. But what to do about it? It's done. You're guilty, ashamed, and terribly isolated. Any bridge between you and the other person seems to be severed for sure.
So there you are, hiding somewhere, utterly alone.
Perhaps in a crowd, but still terribly alone inside. And you can't see anyway out.

Of course, as we all probably also know from experience - you can't live in isolation forever, especially when you are hurting bad. You can't suddenly separate yourself from those with whom you have been for a long time, built strong bonds, and on whom you had come to depend.
So the disciples return, slinking out of the shadows of Jerusalem. Probably back to the upper room where they had celebrated the Passover. Each hoping to see the others, relieved they were there, and yet embarrassed. Each ashamed at having gone AWOL when the enemy attacked.
Each wishing, as Max Lucado suggests, that they had one more chance.

Know the feeling?
Each trying to make sense of the accounts of the women who had come to their hiding places with strange tales of an empty tomb and seeing visions of Jesus alive.
Strange stuff.
Then Peter joins the group with a perplexing account of having seen Jesus himself. Was he just grief stricken or......
They wonder.

Eventually, as dusk begins to settle, a pair of believers who had been trudging home to Emmaus, having given up on the whole business, stand outside, banging on the door. Breathlessly they share their tale about Jesus walking with them and having supper with them.
It all seems too good!
And you know what they say about something that seems too good to be true......

These stories.... and the memories of hiding in the shadows -
both swirl in the minds of the disciples.

And then - could it be?............
......."Peace be with you"

"Oh my! Pinch me, and tell me it's really happening!"

Bible says: "they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement..." v.41

Understand what is happening here. Understand it well.
This is far more than a picking up where they left off.
This is a time of reconciling the alienated, of repairing broken bonds, of healing the hurting, forgiving those who were unable to forgive themselves.

These people cower in an upper room,
with each other externally - after all there is safety in numbers
but isolated spiritually from each other and from their God.

They behave just as our first human parents did in the day when they first turned their backs on God, declaring that they knew far better how to live, than in the narrow way which God demanded of them.
Adam and Eve heard God strolling through the Garden of Eden, enjoying the cool afternoon breeze. They ran and hid in the bushes.
Now the disciples hid in some back room of Jerusalem. Not sure where to go. Not sure what to do.
Not sure - till Christ came and found them!

Peace be with you!
He found them where they were hiding.
He came to take them back to himself.

One of the famous parables that Jesus told, back in Luke 15, was of the good shepherd. He risked life and limb, went out into the wilderness, in order to find and rescue his precious sheep that had come so close to disaster by wandering away; the sheep that had wandered away and gotten lost.

Now here is Jesus - a parable come to life
- the Good Shepherd in the flesh
finding, gathering, and drawing to himself those that were cowering in a dark corner.

Here is Jesus, bring to life the promise which had been first sent from heaven through the prophet Isaiah some 700 years earlier:
I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. [Is 43.25]

Here is Jesus, the incarnation of Ps 103.10-13:
He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the eat is from the west, so far has removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;

Do you ever remember as a parent finding your child cowering somewhere in a corner after they had broken something valuable? Or do you remember as a child doing the hiding?
I recall when I was about 6 years old, playing at the neighbours. We were taking target practice - heaving pebbles at a cardboard target..... set up just below a huge living room plate glass window.
I missed the target and, well, that was the fastest 500 metres Kenny ever ran. After which he hid in the basement waiting for, well, what he wasn't sure.
My parents eventually got a phone call. Found me. Brought me to the neighbour. But set things right again. The window got fixed in some magical way. I was NOT murdered. Instead I was forgiven, and not another word was mentioned.
"As a father has compassion on his children..."

"As far as east is from west so far has he removed our transgressions from us" - scattered sinners have their sins removed far, oh so far away, so that they who were scattered could be brought close, oh so close, to God again!

Jesus comes among them:
Peace be with you!
Peace to the disciples.
And,
my friends,
peace to you.

The whole point of Jesus' coming to earth, of giving his life, was to pay for all those embarrassing gaffs, those yellow-bellied moments, those totally foolish and totally wrong moments in our lives
where we have isolated ourselves from others or from God
where, perhaps, we have even done exactly what we swore so diligently we would NEVER do.

And so, as you see Jesus appearing to those re-gathered, but very confused and very guilt-ridden disciples, announcing to them,
PEACE BE WITH YOU
see him come to you, as well.

He stands right here, watching and waiting.
He's already made the first move.
He's come to you.
Come out of the shadows of your life, as the disciples came out of the shadows of Jerusalem. Say, "here I am Jesus. It ain't all that much, but here I am."

And you can rest assured that he WILL take you.
He that restored those who abandoned him, will restore you.
He that brought new hope and peace to frightened, confused, embarrassed disciples, will give new hope and peace to you.

See that and accept that, my friends.
As it was for the disciples, so today it is for us:
The time to stop running.