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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
Today’s Gospel Reading told us how Jesus appeared to ten of His disciples the first Easter evening, instituting the Office of the Holy Ministry. Today’s Gospel Reading told us how Thomas did not believe those disciples that Jesus was resurrected. Today’s Gospel Reading told us how Jesus appeared to the Eleven one week after the first Easter, eliciting Thomas’s confession. And, today’s Gospel Reading told us of St. John’s divinely‑inspired process and purpose in writing his Gospel account. I suppose one could look at those four “paragraphs” as we have them on the bulletin insert and think of them as separate and unrelated events and statements of the past, simply combined by the Church in this Gospel Reading that for hundreds of years has been—and continues to be—read each year on the Second Sunday of Easter. Yet, the Reading’s unique combination of Jesus’s resurrection appearance’s instituting the ministry of absolution, of Thomas’s unbelief and eventual confession, and of John’s expression of the Words of the Gospel leading to faith and life are not disparate historical events and statements, but together they all lead us this day to realize that we are “Blessed with Peace through the Resurrected Jesus’s Ministry”. Thus the theme for the sermon is “Blessed with Peace through the Resurrected Jesus’s Ministry”.
You would not necessarily have to have been at our “Sonrise” Matins last Sunday, Easter Day, to know what St. John reports right before today’s Gospel Reading: Mary Magdalene’s early trip to what turned out to be an empty tomb, her reporting it to Simon Peter and apparently St. John, their going to the tomb and returning, Jesus’s appearing to Mary, and her announcing to the disciples that she had seen the Lord (John 20:1-18). Yet, at the end of that same Sunday, ten of those disciples—hardly believing, The Rev. Dr. Luther reportedly said on one occasion—the Ten locked themselves inside a room, afraid of the Jews, apparently of the Jews’ putting them out of the synagogue, locking them up in prison, or maybe crucifying them as they had Jesus. Suddenly, Jesus came and stood among them—no trap‑door, open window, hole in the roof, or miraculous removal of the wall is mentioned, no matter what some claim was necessary in order for Jesus to enter. Despite the disciples’ actions in the immediately preceding days, Jesus greets them with peace, and they were glad when they saw the Lord. As the Father sent Jesus, Jesus sent them. But, apparently one of the first people they tried to evangelize was unbelieving. (I know he is often called “doubting Thomas”, but his hardheaded skepticism is really rank unbelief. Yes, the other disciples had seen Jesus’s hands and side by that point, but Thomas demanded not only to see but also to touch them.) The next Sunday, Jesus came again and greeted them with peace, confronting Thomas and pronouncing a blessing on all who do not see and yet believe. For, by believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, believers have life in His Name. In short, believers are “Blessed with Peace through the Resurrected Jesus’s Ministry”.
I know at least a couple of you are aware of a YouTube “channel” titled “The Lutheran Satire”, which sets out to, as the channel puts it, “teach the faith by making fun of stuff”. On the channel, recently I watched a video posted more than three years ago titled, “Things your Lutheran pastor totally loves: Talking with Biblicists (Episode Two)”. In the video, a Lutheran pastor mentions forgiving sins in the stead and by the command of Christ, but a Biblicist falsely counters that the Bible does not say that pastors can forgive sins, prompting the Lutheran pastor to respond that the Bible says exactly that, while a citation from today’s Gospel Reading flashes on the screen. (In case you want to see it, we will post the link for the video with the online version of this sermon.)
But, perhaps we too easily make fun of such Biblicists and others who think like them, while we ourselves might have little regard for the very kind of confession and absolution that our Lutheran writings understand our Lord to have instituted in today’s Gospel Reading (Small Catechism V). Oh, we might think that the corporate confession and “absolution” that we usually have as preparation before the Divine Service is important, but such a group confession and “absolution” (if you even want to call it that) was not the widespread practice of the Church for more than its first millennium and a half. Like the Church before them, the Lutheran Reformers knew and practiced private confession and individual absolution, and they believed, taught, and confessed that such private confession and individual absolution “should be retained in the churches and not allowed to fall into disuse”, “especially for the sake of timid consciences and for the sake of untrained young people who need to be examined and instructed in Christian doctrine” (Augsburg Confession XI:1; Smalcald Articles III viii:1). We who believe may rightly judge Thomas for his refusal to believe Jesus’s ministers, but in many ways we are no better. Even if we grant that pastors can forgive sins on God’s behalf, do we ever make use of private confession as it is intended for the sake of individual absolution? Or, do we perhaps not really think that individual absolution offers us anything unique that we do not already have in the preaching of the Gospel, Baptism, or the Lord’s Supper? Or, do we perhaps not really take our own sin seriously enough to know and feel it in our hearts?
The Resurrected Jesus Himself spoke to Thomas: “Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Essentially, stop what you are doing and change. Jesus in‑effect called Thomas both to turn from his sin and to trust Him to forgive his sin. Through His sent ministers, the Resurrected Jesus likewise calls you and me to do the same: to turn from our sin and to trust Him to forgive our sin. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin, whatever it might be (even our sinful natures). He forgives us for Jesus’s sake.
The mark of the nails in Jesus’s hands and the mark of the spear in Jesus’s side not only confirm that the Man standing before the disciples is, in fact, the same Jesus, but the mark of the nails in Jesus’s hands and the mark of the spear in Jesus’s side also reminded them and remind us of Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. God the Father loved us so much that He sent Jesus to save us. Jesus’s death and resurrection were necessary in order for us sinners to have peace with God. Instead of the death we deserve on account of our sinful natures and actual sins, by believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, we have life in His Name. When we like Thomas have a faith relationship with Jesus as our Lord and God, then we have the same salvation, peace between us and God, and so a deeper peace of the soul that passes all understanding. Even if we do not see and touch Jesus as Thomas and the others did, we are “Blessed with Peace through the Resurrected Jesus’s Ministry”.
Curiously enough, some of the same people who do not believe that the Resurrected Jesus blesses us with peace through His Ministry also do not believe that the Resurrected Jesus could get out of the sealed tomb without the stone being rolled back or get into the locked room without there being a trap door or some other way in. They deny that Jesus could have what is usually called an “illocal mode of presence”, and so they also do not believe that the Resurrected Jesus can be present with His body and blood in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper.
By God’s grace, we know better. We believe, teach, and confess that Sunday after Sunday the Resurrected Jesus blesses us with Peace through the ministry that He Himself instituted that first Easter evening, when He breathed on and spoke to the disciples the Holy Spirit and the authority to forgive and retain sins. The Keys to heaven and hell remain Jesus’s, but He has the apostles and their successors, pastors today, with His authority, use those keys for the benefit of His Church. The Resurrected Jesus’s ministers preach, baptize, absolve, and commune, and they thereby bless us with peace. In today’s First Reading (Acts 5:29-42), we heard how the disciples preached even after they had been imprisoned (as they once feared they would be). In today’s Epistle Reading (1 Peter 1:3-9), we heard St. Peter remind us of our being “born again”, baptized in His Name, to a living hope through Jesus’s resurrection. Today’s Gospel Reading includes what may be regarded as the institution of private confession and individual absolution in His Name, though their roots go back to the Old Testament (such as in the Penitential Psalms, for example, Psalm 130:3-4), and they are also found elsewhere in the New Testament (for example, Matthew 16:19; 18:18, 20). Jesus arguably gave us individual absolution because of our souls’ needs, making it easier for us as individuals to receive and appreciate the benefits of His death and resurrection for us. Every week I make myself available here at Pilgrim, at various times on various days, and I welcome those who know and feel their sin in their hearts and desire to have that sin forgiven in individual absolution. And, of course, Sunday after Sunday the Resurrected Jesus is here with His body and His blood, in His illocal mode of presence, in bread and wine, for us to commune and so for us to receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. We may not literally shut and lock the doors as the Church did at one time, but we faithfully practice what is called “Closed Communion”, admitting to the Sacrament only those who first are instructed, examined, and absolved (and that means individual absolution). In all these ways—in preaching, in baptism, in absolution, and in communion—we truly are “Blessed with Peace through the Resurrected Jesus’s Ministry”.
When you repent and believe, when you live in God’s forgiveness of sins, God is no longer angry with you over those sins. Our human eyes may not yet have seen the Resurrected Jesus, and those human eyes may see ourselves outwardly wasting away (2 Corinthians 4:16-18), but we know that we have peace in Christ (John 16:33). Not as the world gives peace (John 14:27), has He given us peace, but through His Ministry. As blood and water flowed from His side, our eyes of faith see Him in His Supper, in baptism, in preaching, and in absolution. As Thomas did, we confess Him, and, as the disciples did, we rejoice. By His mercy, grace, and love, we persevere now, until we see for ourselves with our human eyes, what hymn‑writer Matthew Bridges called Jesus’s “Rich wounds, yet visible above, / In beauty glorified.” (Lutheran Service Book 525:3.3‑4)
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +