Easter 2
Jn
20:19-31
4/12/26
“When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.” “They were glad
when they saw the Lord.” Every time I see this text I am struck by how
incredibly lame that translation is.
Our translation, the English Standard Version, stands in the
tradition of the King James Version and the Revised Standard Version that preceded
it. In these translations as well we
find, “They were glad when they saw the Lord.”
Now I am glad when I look out and see nice weather. I am glad when
I see that Notre Dame, or Michigan, or Alabama have lost a football game. I am glad when Amy tells me that we are going
to grill steak for dinner. But none of these are responses to life changing
experiences.
Seeing the risen Lord Jesus in their midst was a life
changing experience, and so we need to translate this with a stronger word than
“glad.” When the New Revised Standard version came out, it changed the
translation to, “They rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” We find the same thing
in the New American Standard and New International Version. The New Jerusalem
Bible has “they were filled with joy.”
“Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” Of course
they did! Their response marked a great
change from how they had been feeling. We learn in our text that on the evening
of Easter, the disciples were together in a room with the doors locked because
of fear of the Jews. They were fearful – and not without reason.
On Friday the Jewish religious leaders had arrested Jesus,
convicted him of violating the law, and then they had manipulated Pontius
Pilate into crucifying him. The disciples had been with Jesus all during his
ministry. They were well known for being Jesus’ close associates. It was not
hard to imagine that the Jewish leaders would come after them as well.
On top of this, as we heard in last Sunday’s Gospel lesson, that
morning Peter and John had seen that Jesus’ tomb was empty. It appeared that
someone had taken Jesus’ body. And then Mary Magadalene had come and announced
that she had seen Jesus risen from the dead.
She had passed on a message that she said came from him.
As they were gathered in that locked room, suddenly Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The Lord showed them the marks in his body where the nails had been used to affix him to the cross, and where the spear had been plunged into his side to make sure he was dead.
The marks in his hands and side
demonstrated that it really was Jesus who had been crucified. He had died on the cross and had been buried.
But now he stood before them alive. He
had been raised from the dead, just as Mary had said.
John tells us, “Then the
disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” Of course they did! They had seen Jesus die on the cross. But now
he was alive and standing in their midst. The marks in his body demonstrated
that it was the same Jesus who had died on the cross.
In that moment they began to realize
that everything Jesus had said was true. On the evening of Maundy Thursday
Jesus had told them, “A little while and you will not see me, and again a
little while and you will see me.” The disciples didn’t understand what this
meant. So Jesus explained, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and
lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your
sorrow will turn into joy.” Then he went
on to add, “When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has
come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish,
for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have
sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice,
and no one will take your joy from you.”
The disciples rejoiced when they saw
Jesus. And then Christ once again declared peace to them. But this time it was
not just peace for them. It was the commission that the disciples – Jesus’
apostles – were receiving to proclaim that peace to others. Jesus said to them,
“Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending
you.”
Jesus had declared that God the
Father had sent him into the world. He told his opponents, “If God were your
Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I
came not of my own accord, but he sent me.” The Father had sent the Son
into the world in the incarnation as the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
And John’s Gospel tells us why he did his. We learn, “For God did not send
his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world
might be saved through him.”
The Father sent the Son so that the
world might be saved through him. He sent the Son as the sacrifice which atoned
for the sin of all. John the Baptist had declared about Jesus, “Behold the Lamb
of God who takes away the sin of the world.” This is what Jesus had
accomplished on the cross. Jesus had said it would happen this way. He had told Nicodemus, “And as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted
up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”
Nailed to a cross, Jesus had been
lifted up. He had died in the suffering and shame of crucifixion. That death
had been confirmed as one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear and
immediately blood and water came out. But as Jesus stood there risen from the
dead it was now clear that his death was more than it appeared. It had not been
failure. Instead, it had been God’s powerful work to provide forgiveness. John
says in his first epistle that Jesus “is the propitiation for our sins, and not
for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”
Now, as the crucified and risen One,
Jesus declared that they had peace. He had told them on the evening of Maundy
Thursday, “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.” In Christ there was now the peace of sins forgiven. And there was
the peace of life that had conquered death. Jesus had said, “I am the way,
and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except
through me.” He had told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life.” The
risen Lord had conquered death, and now the disciples could understand why he
had 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.”
God had sent the Son into the world to save the world. It
was God’s will to give forgiveness and life won by Jesus to all. And so in our
text Jesus says to the disciples, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”
Jesus set apart his disciples – his apostles – to carry out the
continuation of this work. And he equipped them to do so. We learn in our text,
“And when he had said this, he breathed on them 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.”
Jesus gave the Office of the Ministry to the Church. The apostles
who had been with Jesus were limited in how much ground they could personally
cover. They were limited by the fact that their death – quite often in
martyrdom – would bring their work to an end. But the Holy Spirit breathed out
by Christ has continued to place men in the midst of congregations to carry out
this work of ministry. Paul told the
pastors gathered at Miletus, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to
all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made
you overseers, to care for the church of God, which
he obtained with his own blood.”
Christ sent the apostles forth and told them, “If you forgive the
sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it
is withheld.” He sent them forth to speak absolution – the word of forgiveness.
The Gospel of John begins in chapter one with the John the Baptist declaring
that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It ends in
chapter twenty with the crucified and risen Lord sending forth his disciples to
forgive sins.
Holy Absolution can be described as “the Gospel in its purest form.” The Gospel announces that you are forgiven
because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You cannot get a more
direct experience of that Gospel than when Jesus himself says, “I forgive you.”
The Lord sends forth those in the Office of the Ministry to speak in his place
and stead. It is Christ’s Office of the Ministry. It is Christ’s Spirit who has
placed the pastor in that congregation.
It is Christ’s word that gives forgiveness. When the pastor speaks, it
is Jesus who is speaking through him.
You just experienced this as the beginning of the service. In the
confession you admitted what is true of each one of us. We are by nature sinful
and unclean. As those who descend from Adam we are fallen people who are sinful
by nature – sinful from the moment of our conception. And then in our lives we
sin by what we think, and say, and do.
We don’t love God with all that we are. We don’t love our neighbor as
ourselves, as instead we act in selfish ways.
This is what you confessed about yourself. But then Jesus forgave
your sins. The fact that it was Jesus’ doing was announced when I said that I
acted “as a called and ordained servant of Christ, and by his authority.” “Called and ordained” means that a man has
been placed into Christ’s Office of the Ministry. “By his authority” means that since it is
Jesus’ Office and Jesus’ command to forgive, the forgiveness is Christ’s doing.
And then I said, “I therefore forgive you all your sins.” Through these words it was Jesus giving you
forgiveness.
Jesus says in our text, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are
forgiven them.” That is the loosing key – the word of absolution that frees you
from sin. But he also says, “if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is
withheld.” The Lord tells his Church and her pastors not to forgive – to
withhold forgiveness. This is the
binding key. It takes place when a person refuses to repent and turn away from
sin.
Jesus tells his Church to announce that where there is no
repentance, there is no forgiveness. All
Christians are sinners. But we are saints – holy ones in Christ – because we
are repentant sinners, and therefore we are forgiven
sinners. You can’t knowingly hold onto
your sin and receive forgiveness from Christ.
It is only in confessing sin and seeking to turn away from it that
Christ gives his forgiveness to us.
This is true of all of the Means of Grace. In fact, it is the
reason that we have Confession and Absolution before receiving the Sacrament of
the Altar. There we receive the true body and blood of Christ, given and shed
for us for the forgiveness of sins. Naturally, it makes no sense to say that we
must receive forgiveness in absolution so that we can then receive forgiveness
in the Sacrament of the Altar.
The point of confession prior to the Sacrament is to make sure that
those who are going to receive the body and blood of Christ are repentant. They
go to the Sacrament of the Altar as people who confess their sin and their need
for forgiveness from God. And having confessed this, Jesus forgives their sins
in Holy Absolution.
He forgives you in absolution at the beginning of the service. Then
he delivers forgiveness as you hear the Gospel in the reading of his
Scriptures. He is delivering forgiveness right now as the Gospel is
proclaimed to you in the sermon. Next he will give you forgiveness as you
receive his true body and blood. And while we’re at it we recognize in the
water that flowed from Jesus’ side that through Holy Baptism you have shared in
Christ’s saving death, and so are the forgiven children of God.
Our God surrounds us with his forgiveness. He gives it to us
through the Word, and through the visible Word of the Sacraments – the located
means of his saving action. He leaves absolutely no doubt that those who
confess their sin and repent are forgiven before him. As repentant sinners, we
are forgiven sinners – we are saints.
On the evening of Easter the risen Lord Jesus appeared in the midst
of the locked room and said to his disciples: “Peace be with you.” Because
Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, we have peace. We have peace
with God because our sins have been forgiven. We have peace knowing that death
cannot separate us from God. We have peace knowing that in Jesus our
resurrection has already begun. We have peace because we know though we may
face tribulations, Jesus the risen Lord has overcome the world. And how do we
respond to this? We rejoice, because Jesus rose from the dead.
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