They were startled and terrified…and he said to them…Why are you troubled?  This little dialogue the very heart of this gospel…our next in a long line of Post Resurrection accounts of Jesus appearing in the flesh to the Disciples.  They were startled and terrified.  And He responded…Why are you troubled?   On the surface this story is about some scared disciples locked in a room somewhere in Jerusalem after a dramatic weekend.  But there’s a deeper more profound reality to this moment in that upper room…particularly for you and me. 

It certainly was an anxious time for them…no doubt.  Their Messiah executed…they themselves wondering if the very same was in store for them…maybe they were wondering if He was even the Messiah anyway…did they just waste their last 3 years of their lives traipsing around the countryside?  Anxious moments for these men and women…our first Bishops and first Saints of the faith.  But isn’t that the way it is for you and me too?  2000 years and the more things change the more things stay the same.   I don’t know about you…but in my life…me and Jesus seem to bounce back and forth from total connection and peace at one moment to anxious fear the very next.  Sometimes He is so clear…so close…I can feel him…hear him…my heart totally resting in a felt presence of the Lord permeating my very being.  And other times I don’t know where he is…I can’t feel Him at all…I don’t understand what language He’s speaking...I don’t know what he wants for me. 

Think about our lives even beyond our relationship with Jesus…don’t we all vacillate helplessly back and forth between assurance and anxiety?  Our loved ones…our health…our work…our city…our country…our world.  Anxious questions haunt us…will the report from the Cancer doctor be positive or negative…am I going to be able to pay all the bills this month…am I going to get into A&M or UT…is this marriage really going to work…will our children stay clear of bad decisions…will people like me…am I good enough.  These are our questions…along with countless more…that cling to our souls like barnacles on rock in the sea and they weigh our spirits down.  Our relationship with Jesus is like an internet connection coming in and out of range…one minute blazing fast…the next…stalled.  Right in His midst and yet terrified and anxious.  In this gospel…the Disciples are our stand in. 
This week I came across a spiritual essay that talked about the fact that the opposite of faith is not doubt…the opposite of faith is anxiety.  We can believe in the resurrection…we can believe that this bread actually becomes the body of Christ…we can even believe in Heaven for our loved ones when they die.  But we can’t seem to loose the anxiety of life. 

Mother Theresa is one of the best examples.  In her book…published after she had died…she talked specifically about her life long battle with faith and anxiety.  Over and over again she describes her spiritual life as dry…lonely…dark…devoid of all feeling.  In the end it seems that throughout her life she was unable of a real felt presence of Jesus.  Now if this is true for her…arguably the holiest woman of the 20^th century…what are we supposed to do?  There’s no doubt she was a saint.  Maybe our fragile anxiety isn’t a problem at all then…I wonder…maybe our anxiety is the really beginning of sainthood. 
  
St. Teresa of Avila is another one of the greats.  She was a Carmelite Mystic from Spain and she…just like Mother Theresa…just like the Disciples in that upper room…just like you and me…bounced back and forth between a felt presence of God…that’s what these post resurrection accounts are about…a felt…real…presence of the Resurrected Jesus…and the abandonment that comes from anxiety that all of this is just some sort of charade.  You might remember me sharing one of my favorite quotes from St. Teresa of Avila…by the way she’s a Doctor of the Church…one of the highest titles given to our most profound theological teachers in church history…my favorite quote from her goes like this…Lord why do you treat me this way…to which he responds I treat all my friends this way…to which she responds…it’s no wonder then that you have so few friends.  This Doctor of the Church…filled with anxiety in her faith life.  Another one of her most famous spiritual quotes is so simple…so true...so un-complicated…in her anxiety she said this:  Let nothing disturb you; Let nothing frighten you; all things are passing away; God never changes. Patience obtains all things; whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.

That’s the very point of the resurrection…It’s why Jesus appears to them so many times.  It takes a while for them to get it…to not be afraid…to not be anxious.  But isn’t that true for you and me too…it takes a while for us to get it…and we wonder if we ever will get it…but we will eventually…if we keep these important words of St. Teresa of Avila in our hearts and minds….we too will get the point of His appearances to us in the flesh…right here on this Altar.  It’s the point of the Eucharist too.  Every Sunday…he appears amidst our anxieties…he comes into the locked rooms of our souls as we hide there perplexed…unsure…confused…and he says to us Why are you Troubled?  I am here…look at me…touch my hands and my feet…I am with you.

The opposite of faith is not doubt…the opposite of faith is anxiety.  And our anxieties are why we are here today…they are why we will be back next week…they’re why we must never stop coming back...to be with him.  Our anxieties are actually some of the most important moments of our human experience…it’s mostly because our anxieties that we’re.  Our anxieties are the foundation of sainthood.  Listen again to St. Teresa of Avila’s words again…let them permeate your soul…let them cover over your anxieties like a warm blanket as you sit in the fear of your locked rooms.

Let nothing disturb you; Let nothing frighten you; all things are passing away; God never changes.  Patience obtains all things; whoever has God lacks nothing; God alone suffices.