Leaders know that room.
It’s a new day and as far as last night is concerned, God watched over you. And as the old Jewish prayer says, your spirit has been returned to your body. Another day. Another long day.
Before your feet touched the floor, the world is already pressing in. Ukraine. Gaza. Earthquakes carving fault lines through cities and certainty alike. Headlines circling names like Mendelson, Epstein, and the royal formerly known as prince. Political theatre masquerading as leadership.
You scroll, half-awake, mobile Sky News glowing in the dim light, click bait screaming for attention, spam email promising urgency, more digital-storage space and vast wealth you never asked for, Instagram insisting you do not miss pictures of angry ducks and other outrage. You try to piece together what is true, what is click-bait, what might unravel next. It is not just information overload. It is the quiet ache of not knowing what is really going on.
Imagine that locked room in John 20 like it is now – the door locked from the inside, carpet worn and frayed from where the anxious have walked nervously back and forth wondering…. Lights flicker and stutter irritatingly, whilst outside, lorries and Amazon vans drive past in the rumbling traffic. The world outside carries on as if nothing cosmic has taken place. Meanwhile, inside, hearts are racing. Conversations hushed. Coffee cups empty. Outside, life continues as normal, but here… Time. Suddenly. Pauses
And who is in that room? None of the movers and stirrers like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Xi Jinping, or Mark Zuckerberg and definitely not theology heavyweights at the peak of long careers. It’s young men, many likely in their twenties. Fishermen. A former tax collector. Ordinary labourers. John perhaps still in his early twenties. Peter not much older. Thomas with questions he cannot silence. These are not men with decades of leadership behind them. They are young, shaken, painfully aware of how they failed. The future of the church, humanly speaking, looks very fragile.
And into that room, the risen Christ comes.
Not with a whiteboard, an iPad or a stack of books. Not even with a reprimand, instead, “He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” No tightening of expectations. No subtle rebuke for their failure. He breathes.
Leaders know that room. Whether you are in your twenties or your sixties, you know what it is to feel underqualified for the moment – where imposter syndrome brings on the cold sweats. You gather and encourage people who are weary from headlines and from their own warzone. You feel the pressure to steady everyone, to offer clarity where there is fog, to project confidence even when your own heart is wrestling.
The temptation is to manufacture momentum, to answer uncertainty with activity. An example is that over the past ten years Catalyst has planted more than 300 new churches in different parts of the world and is now looking to plant 1000 more. That kind of vision is weighty. It stretches faith. It exposes the limits of human strength.
But Jesus does not manufacture anything. He creates. As in Genesis, when the Lord breathed into dust and made a living man, so here the second Adam breathes life into fearful disciples and forms a new humanity. Resurrection is not a concept to defend. It is life to receive. The church is not sustained by adrenaline or eloquence. She lives because the Spirit of the crucified and risen Christ indwells her.
Notice who breathes. The scars remain. The hands extended over them were pierced. The Spirit is given from wounded flesh. This is not triumphalism. It is cross-shaped authority. The power entrusted to you is not detached from suffering. It flows from it. That keeps you humble. That keeps you near to grace.
There is no passive legalism here. Jesus does not say, “Try harder.” He commands them to receive. Grace arrives as gift, not wage. It has provision within it. He knows their fear, and He meets it with himself.
Before you go on Facebook, scroll through Instagram, open your next email or step into the next moment of life, do yourself a favour and remind yourself; the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. Not as abstraction. Not as ornament. As breath.
In a world that feels unstable, in rooms thick with uncertainty, Christ still comes through locked doors. He still stands among his people. He still breathes. Let Him breathe fresh life on you in your worst moment. Today.