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Grace, mercy and
peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Have
you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and
yet have believed.
Prayer: Dear Lord
Jesus, come and stand among us today, and breathe out upon all of us your Holy
Spirit: to me that I may preach the gospel, and to all of us, that we may hear
the gospel and believe it. Amen.
This wonderful
Gospel that we have read today begins in a way that strikes us as a bit
strange: it begins with fear. We read that the disciples were altogether
there on the evening of Easter Sunday, on the evening when Jesus rose from the
dead, and the doors were locked and they were fearful, they were scared of the
Jews.
Later on, we can go
and read in the Book of Acts how the disciples went and preached with boldness
and confidence and fearlessly, but here there is no boldness and confidence—there
is only fear.
This is important
because we have to realise that Jesus did not choose his twelve disciples
because they were confident and bold and fearless. No – he chose them in all
their hopelessness, in all their uselessness, in all their fear.
But you see, Jesus
doesn’t want disciples who are already strong and confident in themselves.
People like that are no use to him. Jesus only chooses weak people and then
when he gives the Holy Spirit, he gives all the strength that the disciples
need.
This is so
important – but we might ask: Are the disciples really all that weak? Well,
they didn’t always think so. When Jesus was going on his way to die and before
he was arrested, the disciples said: we are going to be strong for you, Jesus.
We are going to make a decision to follow you, Jesus. Peter says: Though they all fall away because of you, I will never
fall away. Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you. And we read: And all the disciples
said the same.
But Jesus has a
different plan for them. He says: You will all fall
away because of me this night...but he also gives
them a wonderful promise of comfort and says, but
after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.
And so what happens
to the disciples? As soon as the first sign of danger comes and the crowd comes
with swords and clubs, they all run away. And then Peter also denies Jesus
three times. And we read that when the rooster crowed to remind Peter of Jesus’
prophecy, Jesus turns from the other side of the room and looks at him. And
Peter goes out and weeps bitterly. He goes outside and cries like a baby.
Jesus turns and
looks at Peter as if to say to him: You are a sinner, and I am your Saviour.
There is only one Lamb of God and that is me—it is not you. I do not need you
to come and die with me—I will die by myself and I will be the Saviour of the
world. And if you are going to be saved by me, you cannot be a Saviour with me—you
must be a sinner. There’s only two possibilities in Christ’s church—there’s
only two categories. Either we have to be a Saviour, or we have to be a sinner.
If we are a Saviour, then we are a church withoug Jesus. It’s as if to say: Who
needs Jesus, if we are here? But if we believe that we are sinners, then we are
a church with a living Jesus.
And so, here we see
the disciples gathered together and they are scared. They have locked the doors
to hide themselves from the Jewish people. Jesus was dead, and he was crucified—maybe
they thought—we are next. And so our reading begins with these disciples
gathered together, fearful, failures, sinners.
And then a
wonderful thing happens. Jesus arrives. Jesus
came and stood among them and says to them: Peace be with you. I have died for you. I have made peace between you and God through my
blood, and now I have risen from the dead and come and bring my peace to you.
Now, how did Jesus get
into the room if the doors were locked? He didn’t break the door down. He
simply came and stood there. Jesus has a human body and he is a real man.
Normally, a man can’t walk through a wall or a door. But Jesus is also true God
and he can do whatever he wants. Already, he had walked through a closed door.
When he rose from the dead, the angel rolled the stone away, not to let Jesus
out, but to show that he wasn’t there. Jesus had already risen from the dead,
and now he had walked out of the tomb through the closed tomb.
And now, on Easter
Sunday evening, Jesus walks in through a closed door, and he says: Peace be with you. Maybe the
disciples thought—this is a ghost. Maybe they thought—only ghosts can walk
through doors and through walls. But then Jesus shows them that he is not a
ghost. We read: When he had said
this, he showed them his hands and his side. Maybe the
disciples thought—“We are failures! We have let Jesus down—and now his ghost
has come to punish us!” No—Jesus doesn’t say, “You rotten fools—now I’ve got
you!” He says: Peace, peace be with
you. And he shows them where this peace comes from: he
shows them his hands and his side. Jesus shows them the wounds that bled for
them and in the wounds of Jesus, we have all the peace we need.
What a wonderful
gift! What a wonderful Saviour we have here! What a gentle, loving shepherd we
have who comes and speaks his peace to his sheep. Even today, Jesus comes and
stands among us—he enters through the doors and the walls to stand right here.
And he meets with you with all your sin and with all your failure and all your
guilt. But Jesus wants you to know that he is here—so he makes sure that
you know this by speaking to us. Jesus puts his pastor here to speak not his
opinions, but the words of Jesus. He speaks: I baptise you in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He speaks: I forgive you all your
sins. He speaks: Take, eat, this is my body given for you, and my blood shed
for you for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus has walked through closed doors, and
now as true God and true man he walks into the bread and wine through his word,
to speak and to bring his peace to you. What a wonderful Lord Jesus we have! We
read: the disciples were glad when they saw
the Lord.
Now, we read something
very special. It says: Jesus said to them, “Peace
be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he
had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit!
If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold
forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.”
I remember hearing
from a Christian friend of mine how he was walking with someone around
Adelaide, where I’m from. And my friend was trying to encourage the other
person in their faith. And they came to a big cathedral and were going to walk
past it, but my friend said: Why don’t we go inside and we can say a prayer
together. And the person said to him, “I can’t go in there! The walls would
fall down on me. The roof would cave in on my head.” And my friend said, “No—Jesus
is here, and we can go in with him.” And so they linked arms, the two people,
and they went into the church together.
This reminds me of
our reading here. If we are going to enter into God’s presence, anyone would
think he would destroy us. God is perfect—we are not. Even if there were the
tiniest drop of sin, God should destroy us and punish us. A cup of water with
one drop of poison needs to be thrown out. But, there’s more than a drop—don’t
you know it? Our whole heart, our whole life, all our thinking has been
poisoned by Satan, and we have no right to come to God and enter into his
presence, and to pray, and to be saved and go to heaven. We sinners have no
right.
The only way any of
these things are going to work is if Jesus actually forgives us. And he does.
And now, he sends his apostles out everywhere to speak this forgiveness. Jesus
is true God, and when he speaks forgiveness, this is God the Father’s
forgiveness, and it comes with all the power of the Holy Spirit.
And so now, Jesus
gives the same Holy Spirit to the apostles. He breathes on them and says:
Receive the Holy Spirit. Jesus and the Father have linked arms. Everything they
do they do together. And now Jesus says, As the
Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. And so now, Jesus links arms with the apostles. They are going to speak
the word of Jesus. Whoever hears them is going to hear Jesus. St John says: We are from God. Whoever listens to God listens to us;
whoever is not of God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of
truth and the spirit of error.
And so now, we
pastors—what are we supposed to preach and teach? Well, we link arms with the
apostles and we speak the same thing they did. And when we speak the word of
the apostles, then we are speaking the words of Jesus with the power of the
Holy Spirit. And all of us who come and listen in the church? How do you know
that this word you are speaking is from the Holy Spirit? Well, this word must
be the same word that Jesus gave Peter, James and John, and all the apostles to
speak.
But Jesus doesn’t
send them out to say anything. He sends them out and said: If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if
you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.
Now, are the
apostles called to be tyrants and to say—today, I’m going to forgive you. But
not you! No—they are called to administer this forgiveness—but with a proper
basis, not according to their own ideas. So what is this basis?
Well, let me say
something about the devil. The Word of God comes with all the power of the Holy
Spirit. But the devil’s power also comes from God’s Word—but from twisting it.
So in the Garden of Eden, God spoke His Word to Adam and says: The tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not
eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. And then the devil comes and says: Did God really say? He sows doubt in
God’s word. And then he twists it so that it says exactly the opposite of what
God says. The devil says: You will not surely
die.
And so, when we
look at God’s commandments, we say: Jesus, I was wrong, but you are right. I am
a sinner, you are my Saviour. If this is what we say, then Jesus promises his
forgiveness to us. And he says to us: You are a sinner—that’s true. But I have
a new word to speak to you—the forgiveness of sins. And I don’t want you to
imagine this forgiveness. I want you to hear it. I’m going to put this word
into your pastor’s mouth, so that his forgiveness is my forgiveness.
But if we want to
say: no—God’s commandments are wrong and I am right, if we say—no God, you need
to change your commandments, and listen to me, then we don’t need Jesus. And if
we don’t need Jesus, there’s no forgiveness for you. And Jesus puts this word
into the mouth of his pastors too—he wants people to be called to repentance.
But then, maybe we
think—I am weak in faith, I want to do better, but I keep on falling. I’m not a
good Christian yet, maybe Jesus rejects me.—Don’t despair. The devil doesn’t
want you to know and feel your sin. Only Christians know this—and if you worry
about your sin, then this forgiveness if sor you, in fact, it’s precisely for people
like you. Jesus has risen from the dead. He has won this forgiveness for you
with his blood and with his wounds. He has died a sinner’s death so that he can
link arms with you and present you to the Father. Now he wants to show you his
wounds, and remind you of them, that these hands, these feet, this side shed
the holy and precious blood that paid for each and every single sin. But this
wonderful fact is not kept quiet in heaven. Jesus wants God’s will to be done
on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus doesn’t simply want the angels to know that
he died for you—he wants this forgiveness to be spoken to you, so that you can
hear it and believe it. And when in all your weakness, you hear your weak,
sinful pastor say to you, “I forgive you all your sins”, then you can be
certain that this is God’s will on earth as in heaven. You have everything you
need and you can go in peace.
You were baptised
for the forgiveness of sins. We are going to receive Christ’s body and his
blood today. But what are these things for? They are given for you and shed for
you for the forgiveness of sins.
But one last thing.
Thomas was not there. And he thinks—I’d like to have this forgiveness too, but
I don’t want pretend forgiveness. I don’t want a false prophet who says, “Peace,
peace, where there’s no peace.” There’s no forgiveness if Jesus’ bones are
still in the tomb. A dead Jesus is no use—and a ghost is no use. If you say you
saw Jesus, I want to make sure it’s the real one.
So Thomas says: Unless I see in his hand 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.
Thomas! Come on!
Isn’t it enough for you to see Jesus, but you want to stick your finger in his
wounds and have a poke around!
And so, Jesus comes
again next Sunday, one week later. And Jesus repeats his words: Peace be with you.
And then he says to
Thomas: Put your finger here; and see my
hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but
believe.
All the time Thomas
was whinging and complaining, Jesus was there, listening to it. Jesus knew exactly
what Thomas wanted to do and now he lets him do exactly what he wanted. And so
what does Thomas find in Jesus wounds? What does he find in there when he has a
poke around? Forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. And we don’t want to put
our finger in Jesus’ wounds—we want to hide our whole bodies and souls, and
everything that we have in those wounds. In baptism, we enter into those
wounds, and in the Lord’s Supper, we draw all of the blessings from them. We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and
folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
the power of God and the wisdom of God.
And so Thomas makes
a wonderful confession of faith. My Lord and my God! Jesus is a true man with real wounds, born of the Virgin Mary, but he is
also true God, raised from the dead, and filled with all the living power of
the Holy Spirit to forgive your sin.
And no, here at the
end, we learn something very special. Everyone who ever lives after the
apostles is going to have take their word for it that Jesus rose from the dead.
The difference between the apostles and we pastors today is this: I have not
seen Jesus risen from the dead, but the apostles did and were sent to give an
eyewitness. So when they went out they said: We have
seen the Lord. But we say: The apostles saw the Lord, and we trust
that what the apostles said is true, so that it is not the word of a man, but
the word of God.
Thomas was called
to be an apostle and so Jesus allowed him to see his wounds. But Jesus says:
Everyone else after you will not have this luxury. They will have to take your
word for it. Have you believed because
you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
This is a great
encouragement to us. What do we see in the world? Christians being killed here
and there. People falling away from the faith. Faithful pastors falling foul of
church politics. What do we see in our hearts? Sin, failure, weakness. But
Jesus sees all of this, even if we can’t say him. And yet he gives us his word,
so that in this life we hear him and believe in him, and in the next life, we
will see him in heaven, face to face, with all of our sin completely washed
away and all of our wounds transformed and transfigured and glorified into
badges of victory, just like his wounds which poured out for us his holy
and precious blood.
And so John writes
at the end of our reading: Now Jesus did many
other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book;
but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and
that by believing you may have life in his name.
Amen.
Dear Jesus, we
believe that you are the Christ, our Lord and our God, and we ask that you
would send us your Holy Spirit so that believing we may have life in your name.
We confess that we are sinful, and that all our thoughts, our words and our
actions are tainted, stained and poisoned by sin. But we confess that you are
risen from the dead, so that we can have peace and forgiveness through your
wounds. Strengthen our faith, dear Jesus, and turn all our fear into gladness,
all our sorrows and troubles and worries into joy, the perfect joy of the
resurrection. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.
And the peace of
God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ
Jesus. Amen.
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