Quasimodogeniti, the 1st Sunday after Easter + John 20:19-31

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!

On the evening of that day when Christ rose from the dead He appeared to His disciples. They had heard the testimony of the women who had gone into the tomb and heard the angel’s words. Peter and John had ran to the tomb and found it empty as well. Yet they were afraid. They feared the Jews who had crucified Christ. If He was not in the tomb, the Jews would come looking for them. But they were also afraid of their sins. Each of them had deserted Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. All had fled. Peter followed behind at a distance but then publicly denied Christ three times. They fear the Jews and their threats and wrath. They feared their own sins.

Gathered together in their fear, the doors shut because of that fear, “Jesus came and stood in the midst.” Using His divine power He passes through the door and stands there in the middle of these men full of fear and says, “Peace be with you.” He had every right to scold them. “Why did you flee in the Garden?” “Why didn’t you believe me when I told you that the Son of Man just suffer many things, die, and rise on the third day?” “Why do you fear the Jews, who can kill the body but not the soul?” But none of that. To these men, who feel their guilt and acknowledge their sins, Jesus appears to them speaking peace. “When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side.” He proves His resurrection to them by showing them the marks that crucifixion and death left on His body. No phantasm. No hologram. This is the same Jesus who suffered, died, and was buried. His hands and side are proof of His resurrection but they also show the disciples the reason Jesus can appear in their midst and speak peace. Isaiah had written “The chastisement for our peace was upon Him” (Isaiah 53:5). These wounds are the price of their redemption from sins. These wounds were inflicted on Christ to atone for their transgressions. There is peace in the wounds of Jesus because by those wounds Christ earned the forgiveness of sins, even the very sins these men sinned against Him only a few days earlier, for “by His stripes we are healed.”

He says to them again, “Peace to you!” but there’s more this time. “As the Father has sent me, I also send you.” He breathes them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” In that moment Christ institutes the Office of the Ministry and gives them a great and precious promise. Christ sends them into the world as God the Father sent Him. He’s not sending them to make satisfaction for sins or to earn the forgiveness of sins. That belongs to Christ alone as the only Mediator between God and man. He sends these men into the world not to earn forgiveness, but to apply it people. “If you forgive the sins of any.” This is what the ministry is about: the forgiveness of sins, bestowing on penitent sinners the blessings Christ earned on the cross. He had told them in Matthew 16:19, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Here He gives them keys He promised them before His death. They are to open heaven to penitent sinners. To those who acknowledge their sin, lament it in their hearts, and confess it, they are to forgive, not in their own names, but in the name of Jesus whose death made satisfaction for all sin.

“If you retain the sins of any,” He goes on. Not all sinners are penitent sinners. Not all sinners acknowledge their sins. Not all sinners confess their sins. Many, most in fact, want to remain in their sins and enjoy their sins. Those who do not repent and flee to Christ for mercy, their sins are to be retained, bound on earth so that they are bound in heaven, not forgiven, so that the merits Christ earned at the cross aren’t applied to them. The ministry Jesus gives is all joy and gladness. It is for those who repent. But those who refuse repentance remain in their sins and “the wrath of God abides on them” (John 3:36). Jesus gives them this ministry. He gives them the Holy Spirit so that they know that this ministry is not theirs, but His, and so that they know that the Spirit is present in this ministry. That means sins are truly forgiven before God in heaven by men, just as sins are truly retained in heaven by these men upon the earth. This ministry is the ministry that stands before you today once again, by the grace of God. The Apostles are dead but the ministry goes on to those whom God calls and ordains as servants of the Word and stewards of the mysteries of God. Here today a mere man said your sins are forgiven, and forgiven they are if you truly repent and believe the Gospel, for by those words, the gifts of the cross are applied anew to you again. By these words, Christ speaks directly to you, “Peace be with you.”

But in the midst of the peace Jesus brings to these men, Thomas is not there. Nor does Thomas believe when the disciples tell Him the good news. He remains in unbelief for an entire week, refusing to believe their witness and the Word of the Lord, hardening His heart to the fact that Christ is risen to bring peace and forgiveness. This week tests those disciples who believed, as well. They were confronted face to face with the hard reality that nothing they could say could convince unbelieving Thomas of the truth. So it is today. Ministers are acutely aware of this. Many of you are as well. For those who are recalcitrant in unbelief, there is no magic formula of words that will crack their rejection of the Word. Only Christ can do that. And He does when eight days later He appears again to them. Thomas is there this time and Christ gives Thomas the same witness He gave to the others a week ago. “Peace to you! Reach your finger here, and look at my hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing!” And it was so. Thomas sees and believes and confesses Christ to be His Lord and His God.

It would be nice if the resurrected Christ would appear to men today, convincing them of His resurrection, wouldn’t it? But this is not the way Christ works. Having ascended into heaven, He works through mere men, those whom He calls to be servants of the Word, preaching the Law to condemn sin and unbelief; preaching the Gospel which forgives sins and grants peace of conscience. Thomas believes because He sees. But “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Blessed are those who hear the apostles’ witness which they wrote in Holy Scripture.  All that is written is written “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” Christ wants you to hear their witness and firmly believe that Christ is in fact risen from the dead, ascended into heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father, ruling all things for the benefit of His church. He wants you to hear the Law which condemns you for your sins, and daily repent, so that you might hear His voice in the absolution spoken by your pastor for no other reason than because He has said, “He who hears you hears me” (Luke 10:16). This is a glorious ministry, not because of the man who fills it, but because the Spirit is present in it to bring to you, and all who believe, the benefits Christ earned for you. It’s a glorious ministry because by it your sins are forgiven before God in heaven. It’s a glorious ministry because by it, Christ, your Lord and your God, speaks peace to you once again, peace of conscience because your sins are covered, peace with God through faith in Christ. Amen. 

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!