After the resurrection, the disciples were huddled together in a locked room. They were afraid to go out. They were afraid of being arrested. They didn’t understand what happened to Jesus. They couldn’t believe what Mary Magdalene had told them. They were sitting tight, with nothing to do except wonder what was going on. They had no idea if this was the “new normal” or what was going to happen next. There was no plan, no strategy, no image board for the new way forward.
Which is pretty incredible if you think about here we are, thousands of years later, celebrating the resurrection and truly feeling the experience of the empty tomb, and sharing some of the same feelings of the disciples, afraid for survival, afraid for what was coming next, afraid that what was normal is never coming back.
Jesus appears to them in the locked room, and things start to change, slowly. There are still those not ready to believe, like Thomas. But somehow, that fearful little group goes on to share the good news of the resurrection with the entire world.
There was no plan, there was simply the next right thing. Jesus appears, eats with them, leaves again. What do they do? The next right thing: tell their dearest friend Thomas who was not there.
Jesus appears to Thomas. What does Thomas do? The next right thing: a declaration of a renewed faith.
Step by step, the next right thing unfolds, until there is the story of the beginning of the church that we read in the book of Acts. Each encounter with Jesus leads to the next right thing, the next step to share the good news of God’s kingdom.
What happens next in the global pandemic? With all the talk about the so-called new normal, no one actually knows. We can certainly try to plan, but maybe right now in the first week of Easter we could take some time to sit with our feelings and simply ask God, what is MY next right thing?