There are many directions a sermon on this text could take. One would be to explore our commonality with the disciples in their fear and doubt. Are we so different today, even after we’ve heard — just one week ago — that Jesus is risen from the grave? How do the anxiety and fear in our lives betray our own disbelief? A preacher could name some of the fears and anxieties that keep us locked in–as individuals and as congregations–and keep us from fulfilling the mission for which Jesus has called and sent us.
The natural thing to do when we are feeling anxious or threatened is to hunker down and lock the doors, to become focused on our own security rather than the risky mission to which we are called. The promise of this text is that Jesus cannot be stopped by our locked doors. Jesus comes to us as he came to the first disciples, right in the midst of our fear, pain, doubt, and confusion. He comes speaking peace, breathing into our anxious lives the breath of the Holy Spirit.
What is more, he keeps showing up. As he came back a week later for Thomas, Jesus keeps coming back week after week among his gathered disciples — in the word, the water, the bread, and the wine — not wanting any to miss out on the life and peace he gives. And he keeps sending us out of our safe, locked rooms, into a world that, like us, so desperately needs his gifts of life and peace.