Easter 2
Jn
20:19-31
4/16/23
What a
difference a week makes. We experience this when we have been sick with the flu
or a cold. We look back a week ago and
remember how bad we felt and are thankful that we finally feel like ourselves
again. Or we feel this way when we have
been waiting for some news and finally receive what we hoped it would be. Perhaps it is a medical test, or notification
about a new job, or acceptance to a school. We look back and remember how things
seemed up in the air. Yet now things
look very different.
What a
difference a week makes for the disciples in our Gospel lesson. 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.” The disciples were gathered together on the
evening of Easter. The doors were locked
because of “fear of the Jews.”
The Gospel
of John emphasizes the opposition that those who believed in Jesus could
expect. We learn earlier that “no was
speaking openly of him for fear of the Jews.”
In the previous chapter, Joseph of Arimathea had come forward to ask for
Jesus’ body in order to bury him. However,
we learn that he was secret disciple of Jesus “for fear of the Jews.”
Now, the
Jews had engineered the death of Jesus by out maneuvering Pontius Pilate. They
had killed Jesus, just as they had wanted.
But who knew if they were going to stop there? The disciples had traveled with Jesus during
his whole ministry. Certainly they were recognizable as Jesus’ followers. They would stand out as Galileans in
Jerusalem. There was every reason to
have fear of the Jews.
Yet then,
Jesus changed everything. Our text tells
us, “Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace
be with you.’” The disciples felt fear, but Jesus spoke of peace. Then when he
had said this, he showed them the reason they could have peace – he showed them
his hands and his side. He demonstrated
that he was the same Jesus who had been crucified and buried on Friday. The
marks in his hands from the nails, and in his side from the spear, proved that
their Lord who had died was now risen from the dead.
Our text says, “Then the
disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.”
But this translation falls a little short. More literally, it says,
“they rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”
The Lord in whom they believed – the Lord whom they had followed had
been put to death. But now he was risen
from the dead. He was there with them again. He had conquered death and so they
rejoiced.
Jesus then gave them
– and us – more reason to rejoice about.
He said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even
so I am sending you.” Then Jesus breathed on them said, “Receive the Holy
Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold
forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
Jesus sent them forth to forgive sins.
Jesus had spoken
about sin in chapter eight. He said, “Truly,
truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” On our own, that is what we were – slaves to
sin. Our thoughts, words, and deeds are continually racking up ever more
sin. Again and again we sin against the
holy God. If the accounting that we deserve
ever came in, there could be only one outcome.
We would receive God’s eternal judgment.
But John the Baptist had declared that
Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. On Good Friday, Jesus was sacrificed for
us. He was sacrificed for our sin. In
this way he won forgiveness for us. John
says in his first letter, “In this the love of
God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world,
so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved
God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for
our sins.” Jesus’ death has made atonement for our sin – he removed the offense
and gave us a righteous standing before God.
Jesus
now has given his Church the means by which he directly applies this
forgiveness to us. He has given Holy
Absolution. This requires that we
confess our sin. We must admit that we
are sinners who have offended God. But
then Jesus speaks forgiveness directly to us through the voice of the
pastor. We confess in the Small
Catechism that “Confession has two parts. First that we confess our sins, and
second, that we receive absolution, that is forgiveness, from the pastor as
from God himself, not doubting but firmly believing that by it our sins are
forgiven before God in heaven.”
As
our catechumens know, I like to describe absolution has “the Gospel in its
purest form.” The Gospel declares that
the Son of God died on the cross for
your sins and rose from the dead. You
can’t get a more direct application of the Gospel than when the risen Lord says
to you, “I forgive you all your sins.”
And if that is true when we hear it in general confession at the
beginning of the Divine Service, how much more it strikes one that way when it
is spoken to me as an individual in private confession.
Jesus,
the risen Lord gives forgiveness. This means that we have peace with
God. We have the peace of knowing that
sins are forgiven. It also means that we
have the peace of knowing that we have eternal life and resurrection on the
Last Day. Jesus said to 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.”
Jesus
gives us life now – life that not even death can end. Jesus says that we will never die. Our Lord
said, “Truly,
truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent
me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from
death to life.” Jesus lives and
therefore we have life that will never end.
Our eternal life has already begun and death cannot change this.
Yet Jesus’
resurrection also means that we too will be raised. Jesus is the firstborn of the dead. The Lord who has risen from the dead will
raise us as well. Jesus said, “This is
the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in him
will have eternal life, I myself will raise him up on the Last Day.”
Forgiveness,
eternal life, and resurrection – that is what Jesus gives us. That is why we have peace. That is why the disciples had peace. What a
difference a week made. The disciples
had encountered the risen Lord. For some
reason, Thomas has not been there. He
refused to believe, demanding the proof of actually touching the marks in
Jesus’ body. Then our text says, “Eight
days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them.” We
learn that the doors were locked. But
notably, this time there is no mention of fear. Jesus had driven it away for the other
disciples, and he was about to do so for Thomas as well.
Once again, Jesus came and stood among
them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he told 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.” Thomas
responded by confessing, “My Lord and my God!”
By his appearance Jesus had given Thomas peace – the peace of knowing
the risen One as his Lord and God.
Then Jesus added, “Have
you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen
and yet have believed.” Jesus speaks
about us who have not seen, but believe in the risen Lord. He says that we are blessed, which means that
we enjoy God’s end time salvation.
Next John adds the
statement, “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, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have
life in his name.” Literally the text says “Therefore” at the beginning of
the statement. This ties the signs
written in John’s Gospel to the goal of giving us this blessing.
Jesus has given us
the signs of the Gospel, and the greatest sign is the resurrection itself. He
has given them to us through the Spirit.
On the night he was betrayed, Jesus talked about how he would return to
the Father. However, he would send the
Holy Spirit. He promised, “But
the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my
name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all
that I have said to you.” He told them,
“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you
from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he
will bear witness about me.
And you also will bear
witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.”
We
receive the Spirit’s witness through the Gospel of John. Here we meet Christ as
he sustains us in faith. Through these
Spirit given words we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and so
have life in his name.
We receive life from
the One who said, “I am the way, and the truth and the life; no one comes to
the Father but through me.” Jesus is the
way, the truth, and the life because he has overcome sin and death. In the risen Lord we know that we have
forgiveness. We know that we already
have eternal life now, and that nothing can take this from us. And we also know that Jesus will raise us
from the dead on the Last Day. Safe in
this knowledge we are freed from fear. For we believe in the risen Lord who
said, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives
do I give to you. Do not let your heart
be troubled, not let it be fearful.”
No comments:
Post a Comment