Second Sunday of Easter

 Video of Service

Second Sunday of Easter (A)

April 12, 2026

Text: John 20:19-31

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  He is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!

            The wounds.  He still has them.  Why?  That we may know.  This is the Lord Jesus who was crucified for us.  Dead and buried.  Our punishment, for our sins.  Our cross.  Our hell.  Our tomb.  See the scars.  He was mortally wounded.  Yet, behold, He lives.  The Lamb of God, slain, but standing.  Victorious.

            The wounds.  They are, for us, the wells of salvation.  Pierced for our transgressions.  Crushed for our iniquities.  Upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace (Is. 53:5).  Peter preaches, as did Isaiah before him: "By his wounds you have been healed" (1 Peter 2:24; ESV).  The Rock of Ages, cleft for me.  Let me hide myself in thee.

            The hands. The feet.  The riven side, whence flowed the water and the blood.  Be of sin the double cure.  Cleanse me from its guilt (justification) and power (sanctification).  It all flows from His wounds.  Into font and chalice.  And so, into you.  And so, into me.

            So, when I am tempted, I flee to the wounds.  They are the stronghold, my protection from Satan’s flaming darts. 

            When the guilt of my sins overwhelms me, I run to the wounds.  There is forgiveness in the blood.  The blood is the propitiation, the atonement, and the purifying agent.

            When I have been sinned against, behold, the wounds.  Suffered also for my neighbor.  For the forgiveness of my neighbor.  The same mercy.  The same blood.  It covers me.  It covers my neighbor.  If God forgives my neighbor, how can I not forgive him?  If God forgives me... at the cost of these precious wounds... Forgiveness flows from these wounds, to me, and through me, to my neighbor.

            So, when I am given to judging my neighbor in his sins... as though his sins are not as qualified, as are mine, for the mercy of the Lord... look at the wounds.  And bury that nonsense deep within them.

            When I am weak, or sick... When I know the brokenness of everything... When I am grieving, or sad... When I am lonely...  When I am dying...  There is healing in the wounds.  Only in the wounds.  The Strong One, weak, with my own weakness, in order to make me strong with His strength.  His body broken, that I be made whole.  His sorrow, His tears, turning mine into joy.  Forsaken by all, that I never be alone.  Not even in death.  In which, even then, I will live.  Because He died.  But He lives.  And I live in Him.

            See how His wounds give meaning to my own.  Mine are joined to His.  His redeem and consecrate Mine.  St. Peter tells us how.  Though now, for a little while, if necessary, you are grieved, these various trials are gifts of God, given, why?  That “the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:7).  What does it mean?  What kind of test could this be?  It is not an academic test, or a fitness qualifier.  This is metallurgy!  The purifying of gold.  It is melted into liquid.  Surely, being melted is not a pleasant experience!  But what happens?  As the precious metal is melted down, all that is not gold is brought to the surface, and skimmed away.  So it is with faith.  That is the testing.  The melting down.  So that all that is not faith... all that is not Christ... be exposed and removed.  Your wounds.  They have purpose, now.  United with those of Christ. 

            And what happens to the wounds over time, as they heal?  They become scars.  Scars are important.  They are reminders.  Signs.  Signs that the wounds are real.  That the hurt really happened.  But also, signs of healing and life.  Signs that God does not forsake you in your woundedness.  In that case, there would be no healed scars.  So... signs of God’s absolute faithfulness to you.  And a Promise, as you behold them through the lens of Jesus’ sacred scars: God will raise you from the dead, too.  And what is the proof?  The crucifixion wounds.

            It is Easter evening, and the disciples are locked away for fear.  Having sinned, and been sinned against.  Weak and broken.  In lonely prisons of their own making.  Sorrowful.  Grieving.  When all at once, He appears.  He is in their very midst.  No, He didn’t use the back door, or climb in through the bathroom window.  Here is a great Easter revelation: He’s been with them the whole time.  As He always is with His disciples, now, in His risen and glorified body.  And that, means us, beloved.  He is with us.  There He is, and you can imagine their surprise.  Startled.  Confused.  Doubting their own eyes.  Now, even more afraid.  What if He’s come in judgment?  What if He’s come in wrath? 

            But He speaks forth His peace.  Shalom.  And then, what does He do for His doubting disciples?  What gift does He give them, that makes everything right?  Then He showed them His hands and His side.  The wounds!  He still has them.  That the disciples may know.

            Now, Thomas was not with them.  Doubting Thomas, we say.  And it is true, he should have believed his brothers’ resurrection preaching.  But his instincts are right.  What does he demand to see?  The wounds.  That will do it.  They are the only cure for doubt.  Contact with the wounds of our Lord Jesus Christ.  “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe” (John 20:25).

            Eight days later, there He is again (He has this way of appearing in the flesh on Sundays, wherever His people are gathered).  And what does He say?  Thomas, here are My wounds.  Go ahead, poke around.  Here is the cure for all that ails you.  “Do not disbelieve, but believe” (v. 27).  And it works, doesn’t it?  In place of doubt, faith!  And creedal confession.  Thomas says to Him, “My Lord and my God!” (v. 28).  And then, as though turning and looking at us, the Lord says to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (v. 29).

            It is true, we haven’t seen, and yet we believe.  But we have come into contact with those blessed wounds.  The Rock is cleft for us in altar and font.  We hide ourselves in those wounds in the blest baptismal waters, and every time the Absolution is spoken, as Jesus here gives it (“If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven” [v. 23]).  The blood covers us in the body given and the cup poured out, cleansing us, purifying us, forgiving our sins.  And we believe.  And we confess.  “My Lord and my God!”

            That is the power of Jesus’ wounds.  He doesn’t bear them such that they still hurt Him.  Now they are trophies, witnesses, signs.  These things were written, first, in the flesh of God’s Son.  “Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands” (Is. 49:16).  And then they are written in the Gospel, the Scriptures: “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30).  And so it is.  Behold, the wounds.  The Lord Jesus bears these wounds for you.

            Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  He is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.