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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!)
What was this past week between Easter Day and the Second Sunday of Easter like for you? Did your celebrating Easter (or not) make a difference on the “eight” days? In today’s Gospel Reading, with its two post-resurrection appearances of Jesus one week apart, we heard how the eight days differed for ten of Jesus’s disciples and for Thomas, which differences ultimately led both to Jesus’s statement of our blessedness, as those who have not seen Him and yet have believed, and to the Divinely‑inspired Gospel writer’s statement of his purpose in writing, that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing we might have life in His Name. This morning we consider that Gospel Reading under the theme, “Not seeing yet believing and having life”. We will take each of those three participial phrases in turn.
First, then, is not seeing. You may remember from our two services Easter Day that Mary Magdalene announced to the disciples that she had seen the Lord (John 20:18), but the words seemed to the disciples an idle tale, and they did not believe her or the other women (Luke 24:8‑11). Even when Jesus miraculously appeared where the disciples were, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, only after Jesus showed them His nail-marked hands and spear‑marked side, apparently also inviting them to touch Him and see (Luke 24:39), did the Ten then rejoice at seeing the Lord. Later, when the Ten told Thomas that they had seen the Lord, Thomas made his belief in the Ten’s words conditional on seeing and touching Jesus for himself. You might say that Thomas only wanted what the Ten had received, though the Ten had not demanded it as Thomas did. Usually when people on their own terms demanded a sign from Jesus, Jesus was reluctant to give them one, but, after eight days, Jesus gave Thomas at least the opportunity to do exactly what Thomas had demanded, and then Jesus spoke about our being blessed not seeing.
To be sure, we do not see Jesus exactly the same way that Mary Magdalene, the Ten, Thomas, and any of the other more‑than‑500 people who saw Jesus between His resurrection and ascension saw Him (1 Corinthians 15:5-7). For some people today, that may be a problem. They may think and even say that, if they could only see Jesus as those people saw Jesus, then they also would believe as those people believed. Jesus described people who asked for signs as an evil and adulterous generation (Matthew 16:4). Faith that depends on seeing, whether seeing Jesus Himself or seeing other signs, arguably is unbelief (Michaelis, TDNT 5:349, citing also Mark 15:32). Jesus intends for us to believe on the basis of others’ words (John 17:20), and St. John has the same intention, as he made clear in what he wrote about the purpose of his Gospel account. Even if on the basis of those words we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that God raised Him from the dead and, like Thomas, we confess Him to be our Lord and our God (confer Romans 10:9-10), we still may be skeptical about some of other things that belief in Jesus entails, or we may not really let Jesus be Lord of our life, as we continue to do what we want to do, even when we know that what we are doing He regards as sin.
Of course, we are not blessed only for not seeing but for not seeing yet believing, which is the second of the three participial phrases in the theme under which we are considering today’s Gospel Reading. We recognize that we do not see Jesus as the Ten and Thomas did and that we should believe on the basis of others’ words about Jesus, but also that we do not always do so, some times seeking signs and other times being skeptical about aspects of believing in Him or not really letting Him be Lord of our life. From such sins and from our sinful natures, God calls us to repent, as God so called the people in today’s First Reading through the once‑imprisoned apostles’ preaching of repentance and forgiveness (Acts 5:12-32). God so enables us to turn from our sin and to trust in Him, and, when we do, then He truly does forgive our sin—all our sin, whatever our sin might be—for the sake of Jesus, His Son and the Christ.
When Jesus made the two post‑resurrection appearances narrated in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus greeted His disciples with “peace” and showed them His hands and side scarred with His battle to win that peace for them and for us: on the cross dying in our place the death we otherwise deserved on account of our sins. Jesus’s scarred hands and side also verified that He was the same Jesus Who had died but now lived, victorious over sin, death, and the power of the devil. Jesus truly was and is the Christ, the Messiah, the long-promised Anointed One Who saved His people from their sins. As a man, He was able to die, and, as God, His death could atone for the sins of the whole world. His human nature was and is personally united to His divine nature, and so He could miraculously come into the locked room, and so also He can miraculously be present in the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar with His Body and His Blood and there give us life (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, VII:100; confer Pieper, II:127).
Having life is the third of the three participial phrases in the theme under which we are considering today’s Gospel Reading. Others’ words about Jesus not only report the salvation He won for us but also apply that salvation to us, forgiving our sins and so also giving us life so that we have life. In the Second Reading (Revelation 1:4-18), we heard Jesus say that He has the keys of death and Hades. In the Gospel Reading, Jesus entrusted the exercise of His keys to His apostles and to their successors for the benefit of His Church (confer Matthew 16:19; 18:18). Those who perhaps were afraid of the Jews casting them out of the Synagogue (confer John 7:13; 9:22; 19:38), themselves were given similar authority, as Jesus sent them and breathed out the Holy Spirit onto them. The Small Catechism which we all said that we hold as faithful and true when joining the congregation, as Geoff and Leslie do this day—that Small Catechism especially finds in these words of our Lord the Sacrament of private Confession and individual Absolution, though the Office of the Keys also can be rightly understood more broadly, including preaching and administering the Sacrament of Holy Baptism and distributing the Sacrament of the Altar (Augsburg Confession XXVIII:6). God is surpassingly rich in His grace that He gives us so many different ways of faithfully receiving His forgiveness and the life that comes with it (Smalcald Articles III:iv).
So forgiven and having life, we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). We do not make demands of our Lord, but we believe all that faith in Jesus entails, and we really let Him be Lord of our life. We confess Him for ourselves, and, according to our individual vocations, we tell others about Him so that they might confess Him, too. We may have periods of doubt and even unbelief, but, with the father who brought his demon-possessed son to Jesus, we pray, “I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). So helped, we have peace and joy both in the midst of our tribulations now and when we die, until, with the resurrection and glorification of our bodies, we fully experience the eternal life that we have already now in Jesus’s Name.
This morning we have considered the Gospel Reading under the theme “Not seeing yet believing and having life”. Whether or not we have appreciated the difference Easter made for us in the past eight days, we can be sure that, as we continue to repent and believe, Easter not only makes a difference in the days immediately ahead but also for all 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 + + +