Easter 2
Jn
20:19-31
4/28/19
Every night when it is time to go to
bed, I follow pretty much the same routine.
I take a quick look at Twitter to see if there has been any breaking
news in the world or in sports. I look
at the ESPN app on my phone to see the baseball scores for the day and to check
on the standings. I usually take a brief
look at eBay to see if there are any new listings of HO gauge Pennsylvania
model railroad items that Matthew or I may be interested in buying. Next, I
load anything else into the dishwasher that can still fit, and start it.
And then, the last thing I do every
night before going to bed, is to make the sure doors of the house are closed
and locked. Do I think anything is
really going to happen if a door is unlocked? No, not really. There have been occasions when I have
forgotten to check, and it turned out that a door had been left unlocked. I certainly don’t lock the doors out of
fear. Instead, I do it as a precaution.
Things are just safer that way, and so it would be silly not to do so each
night.
In the Gospel lesson this morning,
we hear about two occasions when the disciples were together with the doors
locked. Yet there is a striking
difference between the two. The first time we are told that the doors were
locked where the disciples were “for fear of the Jews.” The second time we are only told that the
doors were locked. There is no mention
of fear. Instead, the locked doors
become a circumstance that helps to reveal why there was no longer fear among them.
Our text begins by saying, “On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors
being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood
among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’” On the evening of the first Easter the
disciples had ample reason to fear the Jews - a term that is used here to designate
those who were opposed to Christ. The
Jewish religious leaders had engineered the execution of Jesus. Were they going
to be satisfied to stop there? Or would
they seek to wipe out Jesus’ inner circle of followers as well?
Beyond that, it had been a bizarre
day. It began with the shocking news
that Jesus’ tomb was empty. His body
wasn’t there. In John’s Gospel we are
told that Mary Magdalene had seen two angels who asked her why she was weeping.
Then the risen Lord had revealed himself to her. Next, Mary Magdalene went and
announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and told them about how
Jesus had said he was ascending to his Father.
While they
were swirling with fear and uncertainty in that locked room, Jesus appeared
standing in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Our Lord then showed them his hands and side. It is a fascinating detail. The marks on his
body provide the assurance of continuity between the Jesus standing before
them, and the Jesus they had seen die.
Nails had been driven through hands and feet in a way that meant failure
and sorrow. Now the places where those nails had been became a witness to the
fact that Jesus had risen bodily from the dead.
It was the
same Jesus! And in a moment, their world changed. Our translation says the disciples “were glad
when they saw the Lord.” Now, I am glad
when I see a final score and learn that the Cubs have won. But I rejoiced
in 2016 when they won the World Series for the first time since 1908. And that is in fact what the Greek verb here
means – “they rejoiced when they saw
the Lord.”
The
apostles and first disciples may have been ancient, but they weren’t stupid.
They had far more firsthand experience with death than you or I do. And they
knew that when a person died, he or she was
dead. They didn’t go around
expecting people to rise from the dead. They
didn’t expect someone who had been dead to appear in their midst.
Yet that is
what Jesus did. Then a second time he
said to them, “Peace be with you.” And he added, “As the Father has sent me,
even so I am sending you.” Jesus
breathed “and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins
of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is
withheld.’”
The risen
Lord declared to the disciples that they had peace. Then he called them to a
task that was to deliver this peace to others.
He authorized them in the same way he had been authorized by the Father,
for their work was now an extension of the work the Father had sent Jesus to
do. Through the work of the Spirit they were now to forgive sins.
The
disciples had heard Jesus say to his opponents, “You are from below; I am from
above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would
die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your
sins.” Then he had added, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you
will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak
just as the Father taught me.”
Jesus had been lifted up on the cross. Yet now, he stood in their midst alive –
risen from the dead. John the Baptist
had declared that Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world. In his death, Jesus had
accomplished this. He had won
forgiveness, and now he was sending his disciples with the authority to apply
this forgiveness to others.
Jesus sent
them to give forgive sins. And of
course, as Luther says in the Small Catechism, where there is the forgiveness
of sins there is life and salvation.
Jesus Christ stood in their midst having risen from the dead. He was the One who had told Martha, “I am the
resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he
live,
and
everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.” Now it was clear why
this was so. The Lord Jesus had defeated death.
In forgiveness he gives life now
that will never end. In the resurrection
on the Last Day he will give us bodily life once again.
Forgiveness of sins, life, and
resurrection of the body provided by Jesus Christ the risen Lord - that is what
we find in our text this morning. With good reason, Jesus stood in their midst
and declared twice that he was giving them peace!
But sometimes, we get confused about
what this means. And our confusion can
lead to doubt, and even despair. On the night
Jesus was betrayed he told the disciples, “I
have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you
will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
Jesus has never promised that the
peace he gives means the absence of hardships.
I noted at the beginning of this sermon that the first time Jesus
appeared to the disciples we are told that the doors were locked “for fear of
the Jews,” but the second time we hear nothing about fear. However, nothing about the circumstances of
the disciples had changed in seven days.
In fact, you could argue that they were in even more danger seven days after the resurrection. The Jewish leaders knew that Jesus’ body was
no longer in the tomb. In the hardness
of their heart they refused to even consider resurrection. Surely they wanted to find Jesus’ bdoy that
they believed to be stolen, and the logical place to start was Jesus’ disciples.
When Martin Luther preached on this
text he commented: “In this fear and anxiety the Lord comes, soothes their
hearts, and sets them at peace – not by taking away the danger, but by their
hearts being unafraid. The malice of the
Jews was not take away or changed, for they are angry and rage as before, and
outwardly everything remains as it is.
But they are inwardly changed, so that they are comforted and immovable
and no longer care if the Jews are still raging.”
The peace that the risen Lord gives
is the assurance of the peace of God; the love of God; the life of God. In this we find the basis to live confidently
in this world, even as we share this with others in what we do and say. It doesn’t mean the end difficulties in some
kind of “best life now.” Luther went on
to say: “But Christian or spiritual peace turns that around, so that outwardly
the misfortune remains, such as enemies, sickness, poverty, sin, devil, and
death. They are present, do not cease,
and are encamped all around; nevertheless, inwardly there is peace, strength,
and comfort in the heart, so that it does not care about misfortune and even becomes more courageous and bold when
it is there than when it is not.”
That last statement by Luther points
us to a reality that we don’t want to acknowledge. God uses times of hardship for our good. He does this because the old Adam is still
there. Our sinful nature always wants to
turn in on itself. It wants to enjoy the
good stuff of life and ignore God. It
wants to make the good things of life into a god.
The old Adam has to be crucified –
he has to be killed. God allows difficulties and challenges because that is
what they do. They show us that nothing
else can provide the hope and help we really need. They become occasions when
in fact our heart does become more courageous and bolder in faith.
Some of you may have heard about
Kelly Stafford, wife of Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford. Not long
ago she was diagnosed with the exact same kind of acoustic neuroma brain tumor
that Amy had. Naturally, Amy and I took
an interest in what this mom of three young children is experiencing, and we
have followed it on Instagram. Kelly’s
posts in these first days after surgery have reminded us what it was like when
Amy first came home from the hospital. We also know what a long and slow road
Kelly, who is a committed Christian, faces as she recovers.
We look back on this experience that
we never would have chosen, and recognize how God was at work in the midst of
it to cause us to grow and mature in faith; to lead us to understand more fully
why the resurrection of Jesus Christ causes us to see everything differently.
Jesus passed through the suffering,
weakness and shame of the cross where it seemed God was nowhere to be
found. But in his resurrection on the
third day we see that God was in fact right
there – right where he needed to be in order to give us forgiveness and
salvation. We learn that the resurrection of Jesus Christ gives us the reason
we can confidently trust God no matter what is happening.
Martin Luther said of this: When
Christ comes, He lets the external adversities remain but strengthens the
person. Out of timidity He makes a
fearless heart; He makes a trembling person bold; He makes a restless
conscience peacefully quiet. Then the person is confident, courageous and
cheerful in the things in which otherwise all the world can no longer help with
its comfort and goods. That is a true
and lasting peace, which remains forever and is invincible as long as the heart clings to Christ.” Our
heart clings to Christ because as the risen Lord he appeared in that locked
room and said, “Peace be with you.”
