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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia!
For all the joy and praise of the Lord that His resurrection brings, the actual day of His resurrection was not so joyful and praise-filled for some at first. As St. John’s Divinely-inspired Gospel account narrates, early in the morning, Mary Magdalene found the tomb empty and told Peter and, presumably, John, who at least confirmed that the tomb was empty (John 20:1-10). Then, Mary Magdalene saw the resurrected Jesus and announced to the disciples that she had seen the Lord (John 20:11-18). Yet, as today’s Gospel Reading tells us, that evening ten disciples were behind locked doors for fear of the Jews. But, the resurrected Jesus came and stood among them, spoke peace to them, and showed them His hands and side, and the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Then the Lord Jesus sent them with a gift of the Holy Spirit to forgive and retain sins. And, the first thing that we are told that the ten disciples did, apparently that very evening, was tell Thomas that they had seen the Lord. Today’s Epistle Reading refers to the apostles’ testifying and proclaiming what they had heard and seen (1 John 1:1-2:2), and today’s First Reading refers to the “great power” with which the apostles at least later gave their testimony to the resurrection (Acts 4:32-35; confer Acts 1:8; Romans 1:16). Yet, despite the apostles’ resurrection testimony, Thomas did not believe until he saw the Lord for himself. Considering primarily today’s Gospel Reading, this morning we realize that “The apostles’ resurrection testimony leads to our faith and confession”.
Of course, the Ten also had not believed until they saw the Lord for themselves. Yet, Thomas’s case seems different. Earlier in St. John’s Gospel account, Thomas can be taken as being truly devoted to His Lord (John 11:16), but on Easter evening Thomas was not present with the other disciples, so at least one Bible commentator describes Thomas in almost “bipolar” terms: Thomas’s being “either in the highest realms of bliss or in a state of lowest dejection” (Kretzmann, ad loc John 20:24-29, p.525). To be sure, in talking with the Ten, Thomas ruled out even the possibility of his believing unless he not only saw Jesus but also placed his finger into the mark of the nails and placed his hand into Jesus’s spear-pierced side. Jesus’s disciples had seen Jesus raise others from the dead, and they had heard Jesus prophesy of His own resurrection, but His disciples seemed reluctant to believe reports of Jesus’s resurrection.
By nature, you and I are no better or worse than they were. To our fallen human reason resurrection might seem impossible. That God would take human flesh and die and rise for our sins might seem silly. That as God in human flesh Jesus miraculously could be born of a virgin mother, exit a sealed tomb, enter a locked room, and be present with His Body and Blood in bread and wine might seem unreasonable. Such thoughts and words and deeds are sinful! If we do not sin in those ways, we certainly sin in other ways, for we are sinful by nature. As we ourselves said earlier in the liturgy and heard St. John say in today’s Epistle Reading, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us; if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Apart from the Holy Spirit’s working through God’s Word, we would not confess our sins and trust God for Jesus’s sake to save us from the temporal death and eternal torment that our sinful nature and all of our actual sins deserve. But, when the Holy Spirit leads us to confess our sins and trust God to forgive us for Jesus’s sake, then God does just that: He forgives our sinful nature and all of our actual sins, whatever our actual sins might be. God forgives us for Jesus’s sake.
That Easter evening, Jesus’s greeting His disciples with “peace” was followed by His showing them His hands and His side, the marks of the wounds that He suffered dying on the cross in order to make peace with God for us. The resurrected Jesus still bore those marks then and presumably still bears them now, as our Midweek Bible Study considering Revelation has been reminded, hearing St. John describe his seeing a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain (for example, Revelation 5:6). As God in human flesh, Jesus miraculously could be born of a virgin mother, exit a sealed tomb, enter a locked room, and can be present with His Body and Blood in bread and wine (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration VII:100; confer VIII:24). As God in human flesh, Jesus could die, and His death could be a sacrifice sufficient for the sins of the whole world—all people who ever were, are, or will be. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading, Jesus Christ is the propitiation—the sacrifice that satisfies God’s wrath—for the sins of the whole world, including your sins and my sins. When we repent and believe, then God forgives us. So, enabled by the Holy Spirit’s working through the apostles’ resurrection testimony recorded as Holy Scripture, like Thomas, we confess Jesus as our Lord and God. We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing we have life in His Name.
In today’s Epistle Reading. St. John says that the apostles proclaimed that which they had heard and seen so that we also may have fellowship with them and with the Father and His Son, and, no doubt, also with the Holy Spirit—not to mention fellowship with one another. That “fellowship” is association, community, communion, participation. Whether or not we are baptized on the eighth day, such fellowship for many begins in Holy Baptism, by which water and the Word God makes us His children, putting His Name upon us. Such fellowship continues as we who are baptized privately confess to our pastors the sins that we know and feel in our heart for the sake of individual Holy Absolution. Lutherans understand today’s Gospel Reading in some sense as the “origin” of private confession and individual absolution, though their substance was present already in the Old Testament, and their use springs from the need of souls for such pastoral care (Scaer, CLD VIII:169, 182). And, such fellowship that St. John describes is most-concretely experienced and expressed in the Holy Supper, where with bread and wine we receive the Body and Blood of the once crucified and now resurrected Christ, and so we also receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
The resurrected Lord Jesus gave His apostles various gifts of the Holy Spirit and used them, including Thomas with whatever mental health issues he might have had, to testify to the resurrection and to the resurrection’s implications, such as the forgiveness of sins, so that we in turn believe and confess. You and I do not so much “witness” first-hand to the resurrection of Jesus as the apostles “witnessed”, though we do “confess” that Jesus rose again from the dead according to the Scriptures. We can and should “witness” first-hand to what the resurrected Jesus has done and does for us as we repent and believe in Him, namely, give us the benefits of His death on the cross and resurrection from the grave through His Word and Sacraments, and so we invite others to come to Pilgrim for Jesus to do the same for them.
This morning we have realized that “The apostles’ resurrection testimony leads to our faith and confession”, and our faith and confession leads to others’ faith and confession. Obviously, not in every case do we or others believe and confess, as people resist the Holy Spirit and remain in their unrepentance and unbelief. However, all we who do repent and believe together have peace with God and are glad, and, in the end, in resurrected and glorified bodies, we have complete joy.
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia!
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +