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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!)
Permit me to ask you three questions. Of what are you and I afraid? What ends our fear? And, from there where do we go? Today in the Gospel Reading for the Second Sunday of Easter, we hear how the Resurrected Lord Jesus moved His eleven disciples “From Fear to Peace and Joy”. This morning we consider today’s Gospel Reading in regards to those three “states” or “feelings” and how Jesus also moves us “From Fear to Peace and Joy”. We take each “state” or “feeling” in turn.
First we consider “From fear”. As some of us heard in last Sunday’s “Sonrise” Matins, in its reading of the verses immediately before today’s Gospel Reading, on the first day of the week, Jesus revealed Himself to Mary Magdalene outside the tomb where He had been buried, and Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples that she had seen the Lord (John 20:1-18). The very next thing that the Divinely-inspired St. John narrates is how, on the evening of that same day, at least ten of the disciples, perhaps in the same upper room where Jesus celebrated the Passover with them (Luke 22:12; confer Acts 12:12), were behind doors that were locked for fear of the Jews. We are not told precisely why the disciples feared the Jews, but, probably because of more than the Jewish leaders’ being able to put the disciples out of the synagogue (John 9:22; confer 7:13; 19:38), the disciples probably feared the Jews because the Jews and Romans had just crucified Jesus, so they may have feared their own deaths. If the disciples at all believed Mary Magdalene’s report about Jesus’s resurrection, they at least still did not appreciate the significance of Jesus’s resurrection.
You and I really do not need to fear the Jews, nor do we have to fear any religious or secular authorities’ putting us to death for our beliefs and practices, at least not yet. But, you and I nevertheless might be afraid of any number of other things. On good days, we might grant that our fear of many of those things is irrational, but there are some things that, even if we should not fear, we nevertheless should have a healthy respect for. For example, death: some of us may fear death too much, while others of us may respect death too little. Of course, Christians should not fear death too much, although at times we do fear death too much, like the disciples, not appreciating as we should the significance of Jesus’s resurrection. Yet, Christians as saints and sinners in this world still should have a healthy respect for death, because, by nature apart from faith in Christ, we certainly deserve death, both on account of the original sin we inherit and on account of the actual sin we commit. So, we start in a place of fear.
Second we consider “From Fear to Peace”. Three times in today’s Gospel Reading Jesus says to the disciples, “Peace be with you.” Because of their behavior beginning on the night when He was betrayed, the disciples might have expected Jesus to greet them with “rebuke and censure” (CSSB, ad loc Jn 20:19, 1647). But, moved by love, mercy, and grace, Jesus greets them with, “Peace be with you.” More than a simple greeting, however, Jesus’s words effected what He said: peace. When He had said, “Peace be with you”, He showed them His nail-marked hands and spear-scarred side—both proof that He was the same Lord Jesus that was crucified and a reminder of the death He died on the cross to effect that peace between them and God the Father. That reconciliation saved them and gave them peace in their bodies and souls. As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading (Revelation 1:4-18), Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the Almighty Lord God, but He is also human, with hands and a side that could be marked and scarred, and so also blood that could free from sin the disciples and all people, including us.
That same Epistle Reading reminded us that Jesus has the keys of Death and Hades, and in the Gospel Reading we heard Jesus entrust the use of those keys to the disciples, and ultimately also to their successors, pastors today (confer Matthew 16:19; 18:18; Augsburg Confession XXVIII:6). As the Father sent Jesus, even so Jesus sends the apostles and their successors, not only by words but also by actions, breathing out the Holy Spirit or imparting it by the laying on of hands (see 1 Timothy 4:14; 2 Timothy 1:6). The Office of the Keys, the Office of the Holy Ministry, applies the Gospel of forgiveness by grace through faith in Jesus Christ to individuals—individuals such as you and me. Jesus did not just end fear and create peace in general, but, through His called and ordained servants, Jesus moves people in particular—you and me—from fear to peace. When we are sorry for our sin, trust God to forgive our sin, and want to do better than to keep on sinning, then God gives us the peace of His forgiveness of sins, through His Word and Sacraments, not only with words but also with actions. Holy Baptism in the Triune Name with water and the Word resurrects us with and re-creates us in Christ as on the eighth day. Although the general idea of private confession and individual Holy Absolution in that same Triune Name goes back to the Old Testament, the rite as we know it is more‑specifically derived from the authority Jesus gives both to forgive the sins of those who repent and to withhold forgiveness from those who do not repent (Small Catechism V; confer Scaer, CLD VIII:169, 182). And, in Holy Communion the Resurrected Jesus is miraculously present, both with His same nail‑marked and spear‑scarred Body in, with, and under bread and with His same Blood that frees us from our sins in, with, and under wine. Jesus’s Incarnation continues, and in His state of exaltation He as man always and fully uses His Divine powers, miraculously entering the locked room and miraculously being present on this Altar. On this first day of the week, Jesus our Immanuel, God with us, is always present as the center of His Church (Matthew 1:23; 18:20; 28:20), and so He blesses us as He wills in all these ways by His powerful Word, moving us from fear to peace.
Third we consider “From Fear to Peace and Joy”. Today’s Gospel Reading tells us that the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. A better translation might be that the disciples “rejoiced” or that they were “overjoyed”. As Jesus had promised (John 16:20, 22), they rejoiced not only when they saw Him but also when He moved them from fear to peace, and so He also moved them to joy. They were filled with joy as they better appreciated His resurrection—Who He was as God and man, what He had done for them on the cross, and how He gave them the benefits of His death. The disciples not only rejoiced but they also told others, one other in particular. Newly ordained and sent, the disciples told Thomas that they had seen the Lord, but Thomas denied even the potential and possibility of his believing, without his first not only seeing but also touching Jesus’s nail‑marked hands and spear‑scarred side. Then, eight days later, probably still in Jerusalem for the conclusion of the extended Passover Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them, and Jesus again miraculously appeared, moving Thomas from refusing disbelief to confessing belief. And, as we heard in the today’s First Reading (Acts 5:12-30), later the apostles themselves did signs and wonders among the people, and, by their words and deeds, the Lord added even more believers to His Church.
The Lord likewise works through the apostles and their successors’ words and deeds to lead us to repent and believe (see John 17:18, 20; Romans 10:13-17). The Holy Spirit inspired them to write Holy Scripture so that we may come to believe and continue believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, by believing, we may have life in His Name (confer 1 John 5:13). We are those who have not seen in the same way the disciples did and yet believe. We go from fear to peace to joy, and, according to our vocations, we also, as we prayed in today’s Collect, by God’s grace, in our life and conversation confess that Jesus is Lord and God to others, even if those others might deny even the potential and possibility of so believing. Jesus moved the disciples (including Thomas), moves us, and will move still others, “From Fear to Peace and Joy”.
As we are appropriately afraid of death, Jesus ends our fear with the peace between us and God that He effected on the cross, and so He also fills us with joy. Our feelings of fear and joy may come and go, but the peace Jesus gives with His forgiveness of sins is an objective state that does not depend on but should affect our subjective emotions, even when we face frightening afflictions and tribulations. Like two witnesses that testify to the certainty of a truth, the Gospel Reading’s two miraculous appearances of the Resurrected Lord move us “From Fear to Peace and Joy”. Living every day with repentance and faith, we have eternal life even now. In our Resurrected Lord Jesus, we do not come into judgment, but we already have passed from death to life (John 5:24).
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 + + +