Second Sunday of
Easter (C)
April 24, 2022
Text: John 20:19-31
Alleluia!
Christ is risen! He is risen,
indeed! Alleluia!
If
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is merely a glorious
demonstration of His divine victory, a personal vindication of His holy life
and the truth of His Words over against His detractors, the grand assertion of
His Lordship over His enemies, then it still demands our worship and
praise. But in the end, it does us no
good. The resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead is not merely for His own sake. It is for us, and for our salvation. His victory is our victory. His vindication is our confidence, and
the power that brings us from unbelief to saving faith in
Christ. His Lordship is the devastation
of our enemies and all that held us captive, including sin, death, and the very
devil. The resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead is our justification before God. It is our reception of the Kingdom by
grace. And it is our own resurrection
from the death of our trespasses and sins (Col. 2:13), to new life in
Christ, in which we are given to walk now in spirit (Rom. 6:4), and then
when He raises our bodies out of the grave (v. 5).
But
if our Lord’s resurrection is to be for us in this way, it must be given
to us. It must be imparted to
us by some method, some means.
We do not receive the benefits Christ’s resurrection by travelling to
the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to see for ourselves that the tomb is
empty. That is not where He gives us His
resurrection victory, any more than we receive atonement for our sins via our
proximity to the Old Rugged Cross, or any other relic. It is true, Jesus won our salvation by
His cross and empty tomb nearly 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem. But the question is, how do we get what He
did there and then, to us here and now? (Those of you who have studied the Catechism
with me, this is the “pipes” illustration, isn’t it?) He pipes it in… He gives it to us by His divinely
appointment Means of Grace, His Word and the Holy Sacraments. And He shows us this very thing this morning
in our Holy Gospel.
There
are the disciples, the Church, gathered in fear, locked behind closed
doors. And Jesus appears in their
midst. No, He didn’t climb in through
the window. No, He didn’t find the key
hidden under the mat and slip through the door when no one was looking. This is a very important point. The risen Lord Jesus is forever and always
in the midst of His Church. Even in
our fear and cowardice. Even in our sin
and shame. Even in our doubt and
despair. He is with His Church, invisibly,
but bodily. And so He opens their
eyes to the reality. He appears
in their midst. They do not come to
Him. If the Church is to be in the
presence of God, she cannot ascend to Him.
He must come to her. And He does,
in the flesh and blood born of Mary.
And
what does He do when He appears? He
preaches the Gospel. “Peace be
with you” (John 20:19; ESV). That
is, “I have not come to berate you for deserting me. I have not come to condemn you in your fear
and unbelief. Nor have I come to
annihilate you in divine wrath. I have
come to announce that your sins are forgiven.
They are at an end. You have
peace with God by virtue of My sin-atoning death on the cross. And you have life, salvation, and joy, a home
and a place in the Kingdom of My Father by virtue of the fact that I am risen
from the dead.” The preaching of this
Gospel is the first Means of Grace. It
pipes in all the saving benefits of His death and resurrection. And in this way, He shows them the tokens of
this salvation: His holy wounds, He hands, His side.
And
then, He sends them, His Apostles (“Apostle” means “one sent as an
official representative,” with all the authority of the Sender). Jesus here ordains an Office for the
preaching of this Good News to the world.
For the shepherding of His Church.
For the tending of His Flock. “As
the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you,” He says to them (v.
21). And for this purpose, He breathes
on them, and says to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (v. 22). Just as he breathed into Adam the breath
of life, and made Adam a living being (Gen. 2:7), so He breathes new
life into His Apostles, His Holy Spirit.
And it is not so that they can inhale and hold Him in. That is not how breathing works. It is so that they, likewise, can exhale the
Spirit to others. How? In preaching!
“That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and
administering the Sacraments was instituted.
For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments [means!],
the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God, in
them that hear the Gospel.”[1] The Spirit is exhaled by preachers in
preaching, and it is the very breath of Christ, inhaled by those who hear and
believe.
And
this happens in a very particular way, in what our Lord here institutes: The
Holy Absolution. “If you forgive the
sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it
is withheld” (John 20:23). This is
the “special authority which Christ has given to His church on earth to forgive
the sins of repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant
as long as they do not repent.”[2] According to these words, we should “believe
that when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, in
particular when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian
congregation and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better,
this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord
dealt with us Himself.” When a pastor
pronounces Holy Absolution upon a repentant sinner, as happened just now at the
beginning of the Service, and as happens whenever you come to your pastor for
private Confession and Absolution, Jesus Christ, who is really the One
speaking, in whose stead and by whose command the pastor speaks, removes your
sin and death from you, and infuses His own righteousness and resurrection life
in you. It is a death and resurrection
in you. It is a return to the baptismal
waters. He joins you to His own death
and resurrection. It is a Means of
Grace, to bring you what happened there and then, here and now.
Now,
like Thomas, who was absent that Easter evening when Jesus first appeared to
His disciples, you may doubt that these things can be true. You may be reluctant to believe the Apostolic
preaching that Christ, who died, is now risen from the dead, and that that
means your sins are forgiven and you have eternal life. You may demand to see such a thing for
yourself. Seeing is believing. Empirical knowledge is the rule of the
day. Unless I see the wounds, and
poke around in them, I will never believe.
What great grace, what astounding patience on the part of our Lord, that
eight days later He appears in the midst of His disciples (once again behind
locked doors), especially for the sake of Thomas, whom He has also called and
appointed for this Office. Once again,
He preaches the Gospel: “Peace be with you” (v. 26)… With all of you,
still locked away for fear. And also
with you, specifically, Thomas, in spite of your unbelief and hard-hearted
demands. Now… here I am! Go ahead, look, touch. Is this what you demand? “Put your finger here, and see my hands;
and put out your hand, and place it in my side.
Do not disbelieve, but believe” (v. 27). And what does this preaching, this display of
Jesus’ wounds, do for Thomas? We don’t
know whether He touched them or not.
That is not what is important.
The preaching of the risen Lord Jesus, the breath of His
mouth, exhales His Holy Spirit upon Thomas, bestowing faith and
confession. “Thomas answered him, ‘My
Lord and my God!’” (v. 28).
Now,
Thomas is given a gift that in some sense, I suppose, we don’t get. He sees the risen Lord, wounds and
all. That is because the Apostles are
given specifically to be eyewitnesses of these things, in order that
they testify of them to the Church and to the whole world. But though you and I do not get to see
the risen Lord and His wounds with our eyes, it really does
happen for us in the same way. Here we
are, gathered together with all our fears, our guilt and shame, our doubt and
unbelief, and our demands for our own standard of proof. And suddenly, here is Jesus among us. No, He didn’t sneak in the back door, or
through a window. As it happens, He has
been with us the whole time, as He has promised, our Emmanuel: “behold, I am
with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). He is not just with us in spirit. He is with us bodily, with His mortal
wounds, but risen from the dead, living, and life-giving. He does not come among us to berate us and
condemn us for the many times we have deserted Him in our sin and
cowardice. He does not come to
annihilate us in divine wrath. He comes
preaching His Gospel: “Peace be with you.” “Your sins are forgiven. They are at an end. You have peace with God by virtue of My cross
and death. You have life and salvation,
righteousness and joy by virtue of My bodily resurrection.” He sends His man in the Apostolic Ministry,
to proclaim to you the Scriptures of the Apostles and Prophets, your pastor, to
breathe on you with the very breath of Christ. And so you receive the Holy Spirit. And what is that proclamation? “In the stead and by the command of my Lord
Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins.”
It is a plunging back into the cleansing baptismal waters, and a raising
up anew unto eternal life. And then,
though you do not see it before your earthbound eyes, it really does happen for
you as it happened for Thomas and for all the Apostles. You behold His wounds. And you touch them. In fact, you eat them and drink them. Crucified.
But risen. Living and
life-giving. This is what St. Paul means
when he writes to the Galatians, “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ
was publicly portrayed as crucified” (Gal. 3:1). It is not that they were there when they
crucified my Lord. It is that they have heard
the preaching and received the fruits of His cross under the bread
and wine.
In
recent days, in spite of my aversion to travel and particularly airplanes, I
have been enamored with the idea of visiting Israel. I’d love to see the places that figure so
prominently in our faith, touch the stones that maybe Jesus touched, the
relics… be there where the Lord Jesus died for our sins, and rose again. Some of you present have done that very
thing. There is great catechetical
benefit in it, I have no doubt, and I am certain it is very edifying. But it is essentially a tour of a living
museum. The Lord does not bring to us here
and now, what He did there and then, by our proximity to the Old
Rugged Cross and the empty tomb. He does
it by coming among us, bodily, in the way He has promised, in the
things to which He has attached Himself.
Words. Water. Bread and wine. The Means of Grace. We often wish that we could see Him
and poke around in His wounds.
But that is not what gives us faith.
The Holy Scriptures are written that we may believe that Jesus is
the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, we may have life in His Name
(John 20:31). That we may obtain such
faith, He has given the Office of the Ministry in His holy Church. He has given His Word and Sacraments. That is enough. And blessed are we who have not seen with our
eyes, but by these divinely appointed means, have believed (v. 29). This is how Jesus gives us life. This is how He raises us from the dead. And He can do it, because He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] AC V:1-3; www.bookofconcord.org.
[2] Catechism quotes from Luther’s
Small Catechism (St. Louis: Concordia, 1986).
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