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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!)
Last Sunday’s Third Reading in our Easter “Sonrise” Matins service was the Divinely‑inspired St. John’s account of the events of Easter morning, including Mary Magdalene’s seeing the resurrected Jesus and her announcing to the disciples that she had seen the Lord (John 20:1-18). Despite any intervening events reported elsewhere, such as a private appearance to St. Peter (1 Corinthians 15:5), today’s Gospel Reading for the Second Sunday of Easter picks up St. John’s account where last Sunday’s Reading left off: with Jesus’s appearing to the Ten disciples that Easter evening—including His sending them with His Holy Spirit to forgive sins or to withhold forgiveness of sins—with their subsequently telling Thomas that they had seen the Lord, with Jesus’s then appearing to them and Thomas eight days later, and with St. John’s statement about the purpose of his Gospel account. Striking is that the first thing Jesus did after establishing His resurrection for His disciples was sending them with the Holy Spirit to forgive sins or to withhold forgiveness of sins—that is how important His Resurrection and our forgiveness are to Him and how important they should be to us! This morning we consider the Gospel Reading under the theme: “Jesus’s Resurrection and Our Forgiveness”.
If, as is the case, Jesus sent His disciples with the Holy Spirit to forgive sins or to withhold forgiveness of sins, then there certainly is sin, both sin in the world generally and sin committed by those who would claim Jesus as their Savior particularly. The Gospel Reading tells us that the Ten disciples were behind locked doors for fear of the Jews—perhaps fear like that of the parents of the blind man Jesus healed, who were afraid of the Jews’ putting them out of the synagogue (John 9:22; confer John 7:13; 19:38), or perhaps the Ten feared that the Jewish leaders would turn them over to the Romans for crucifixion, as the Jewish leaders had done with Jesus. Regardless, the Ten disciples might have had as much reason to fear Jesus as they had to fear the Jewish leaders, for, as St. John tells it (John 18:15), the vast majority of the disciples did not follow Him after His arrest, and, of the two that did, Peter later three times denied Him (John 18:15-18, 25-27).
You and I are no better by sinful nature or by actual sin—whether not faithfully following Jesus, denying Him, doubting His resurrection, or not believing at all. Apart from repentance and faith we deserve God’s present and eternal punishment. We have no reason to fear the Jews or the Romans, nor, if we do what is good, do we have reason to fear our own government (Romans 13:3), but, unless we repent and believe, we do have reason to fear God and His righteous wrath over our sin. As St. John wrote in today’s Epistle Reading (1 John 1:1‑2:2)—and is repeated in the liturgy—if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us, and we make God out to be a liar, and His word is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God calls and enables us to repent of all our sin and to trust Him to forgive our sin, whatever it may be. When we so repent and believe, then God forgives our sin for Jesus’s sake.
Like the disciples, we might fear Jesus and His righteous wrath over our sin, but, instead of being rebuked, when we repent and believe, like the disciples, Jesus greets us with peace. As we heard in the Gospel Reading, Jesus showed them His nail-marked hands and His spear‑pierced side. Without asking, the Ten more or less got what Thomas later demanded, and they were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus was and is the same Jesus that had been crucified, as the Epistle Reading put it, as the propitiation for our sins—the sacrifice that satisfies God’s righteous wrath over our sins—and the propitiation not for our sins only but also for the sins of the whole world. Then He was resurrected and was standing again among them, as now He is resurrected and is standing again among us. God the Son’s resurrection shows that God the Father accepted His sacrifice on our behalf, and now God the Holy Spirit leads us to seek and to receive God’s forgiveness from those whom He empowers to forgive sins or to withhold forgiveness of sins, who for us are not the disciples but the successors of the disciples-turned-apostles, namely our pastors.
Maybe even eight days later Jesus’s disciples had yet to realize that they had no reason to fear the Jews and their authority to put people out of the synagogue (Matthew 23:13), for Jesus had given the disciples the authority to open and close the gates of heaven (Revelation 3:7-8; confer Matthew 25:10). That authority to forgive sins and to withhold forgiveness of sins the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther’s Small Catechism most-strictly connects to the individual Holy Absolution that follows private confession (Small Catechism V:10), when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command. But, more‑broadly what is called the Office of the Keys (Matthew 16:19) also includes the forgiveness of sins that is accomplished by the reading and preaching of God’s Word, which St. John says is written that we may believe in Jesus and so have life in His Name. The Office of the Keys also includes the forgiveness of sins that is accomplished by that Word connected with water in Holy Baptism, and by that Word connected with bread that is the Body of Christ and wine that is the Blood of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar. In the Body and Blood of Christ, we, who are, at the Font, on the eighth day born from above in—and also later absolved in—the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, have fellowship with God and with one another (confer Marquart, CLD IX:41). On the first day of the week Jesus supernaturally comes and stands among us in bread and wine, as He supernaturally left the closed tomb and entered the locked room (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration VII:100). Our eyes of faith see the Lord, and we are glad!
Here, through our Lord’s Means of Grace, in a way quite different from the world, He gives us His peace, and so our hearts are neither troubled nor afraid (John 14:27). Rather, joy results! On the night when He was betrayed, our Lord Jesus Christ spoke to His disciples so that His joy might be in them and that their joy might be full (or “complete”) (John 15:11). As we heard in the Epistle Reading, St. John likewise wrote that their joy might be complete (or “full”). Mary Magdalene told the disciples of seeing the resurrected Lord, as the Ten told Thomas, and as we tell others. In the First Reading (Acts 4:32-35), we heard St. Luke say that the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus with great power, and so do we, at home and abroad, such as through the work of the Luther Academy that we help support. From such testimony, the Holy Spirit brings forth confessions of sin and faith such as Thomas’s “My Lord and my God” (confer Matthew 14:33; 16:16; 27:54; John 6:69; 11:27; 1:1). Those who so repent of their sin and believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, who died and rose for them, truly are blessed by the forgiveness of sins and so also eternal life in His Name (Romans 10:9‑17). We do not come into judgment but pass from death to life (John 5:24), and ultimately our bodies are resurrected and glorified as was Jesus’s body.
Simply put, “Jesus’s Resurrection and Our Forgiveness” is all about the forgiveness of sins won by Jesus’s death on the cross, declared by His resurrection from the grave, and given to and received by us, who repent and believe, through His Means of Grace, so that we have life, both now and for eternity.
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 + + +