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Sermon for Easter 1
1 John 5:4-10 + John 20:19-31
You may have noticed that it’s increasingly difficult to know whom to believe in this world. Propaganda floods the news and social media. There are competing stories about just about everything that happens in the world. Even among those who call themselves Christians, there’s plenty of spin and, sometimes, outright deceit. The truth is, there is, truly, only One person you can and should trust blindly, trust completely. In a world full of liars and lies, believe Jesus!
In today’s Gospel, the apostles still had to learn that lesson. Put yourself back in the setting of that first Easter Sunday. The women came back from the tomb early in the morning and told the disciples what they had seen. Peter and John ran to the tomb and found it empty, and we’re told that John saw the empty tomb and believed. Sometime during the day Jesus appeared to Peter, and when Peter saw Jesus, he believed. That left nine out of the eleven remaining apostles who still had not seen any evidence for themselves, and were, therefore, still unconvinced, still unbelieving of all the reports. Now it was evening, and they were all gathered together in that same upper room where they had celebrated Passover and the Lord’s Supper with Jesus three days earlier—all except for Thomas, who had stepped out. The rest were shut in tightly, afraid of and hiding from the murderous Jews who had crucified their Lord.
And then, in the midst of the room, in the midst of their sorrow and fear and confusion, Jesus just appeared out of nowhere and said, “Peace to you!” He said it twice, so that there would be no doubt. Not only was He alive after being crucified, dead, and buried, but He offered them peace instead of the scolding—instead of the condemnation they deserved. “Peace to you!” He said, and He showed them His hands, where the nails had been driven through two days earlier, and His side that had been pierced with a spear, where the water and the blood had flowed out, leaving Him utterly drained of life. Not anymore. Now those “glorious scars,” as an Advent hymn refers to them, are there as signs of His victory over the cross and over the grave.
Then Jesus said something important to His apostles. As my Father has sent me, so I also send you. Now the sending of the apostles wasn’t exactly the same as the sending of Jesus. He was sent to be the Redeemer. They were sent to point people to the Redeemer. He was sent to be the one and only High Priest in the house of God, who would offer up the one and only true sacrifice for sins. They were sent, not to be priests at all, because all believers in Christ are now priests, authorized, not to make sacrifices to atone for sin, but to offer up our praises and our very lives as thank-offerings to God. No, the apostles were sent, not to be priests, but to be ministers of the High Priest, to speak for Him to the world, and to the Church, and to care for the precious flock of the Good Shepherd until He returns.
Jesus summarizes this sending with these important words: He breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. That was a promise of the gift of the Spirit that they would receive fifty days later, on the Day of Pentecost. And then He added, If you forgive the sins of any, their sins are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.
Now, some people think that truth, objective truth, doesn’t exist, which means that there is no right and wrong, which means that there is no such thing as sin. But you know better. All people are born in sin, because of the sinful nature we inherit from our parents. And all people commit sins against God’s holy law, which sets the objective standards of right and wrong, and which objectively accuses all people of sin against God. All men are trapped in sin and death from the moment we’re conceived. But because Jesus was sent to pay for the sins of the world with His innocent suffering and death, and because He made that payment, in full, His ministers—those whom He sends—are now authorized to forgive sins in the name of the One who paid for them with His death.
Now, Jesus sent those men directly and authorized them to forgive sins in His name. After His ascension, it’s the Church that sends men to carry out the same ministry, still in Jesus’ name, and still with His authority. But the One who authorizes the forgiving also instructs His ministers whom and how they are to forgive. We are to forgive exactly as Jesus did, by calling sinners to repentance and to faith in Him, and by freely forgiving the sins of the one who looks for mercy through Christ, that is, of the one who believes. And the opposite authority is also given, to retain sins just as Jesus retained sins to those who disbelieved. The unbelieving Pharisees thought they were righteous apart from Christ, but time and time again, Jesus spoke judgment upon them: Your guilt remains.
Ministers have to do the same thing at times, telling people outside the Church that, even though they think of themselves as decent people, their guilt remains while they remain outside of Christ. And even to individuals within the Church, ministers must sometimes pronounce the awful sentence: “Because you refuse to repent of your sin, your guilt remains. Your sins are retained against you.” And according to Jesus, that terrible pronouncement is coming from God Himself, by His own authority.
But so is the forgiveness! So is the absolution! When the minister hears your confession of sins, including your sorrow over those sins and your intention to turn away from them, and then hears also your confession of faith that God will forgive you your sins for Jesus’ sake, the forgiveness he pronounces is valid before God in heaven. The same is true when he baptizes, as the apostles first used this authority from Jesus to baptize all who came forward to be baptized on the Day of Pentecost, who heard and believed Peter’s preaching, calling them to repent and be baptized in Jesus’ name for the forgiveness of sins. Those who have been sent by Jesus have the authority to act officially on His behalf, as His ambassadors, to forgive sins to the penitent and believing.
But Thomas missed out on all that on that first Easter Sunday. By the time he returned to the upper room that night, Jesus was already gone. And he immediately put a damper on the celebration of the other ten apostles. “We have seen the Lord!” they all told him. But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail prints in his hands, and put my finger into the nail prints, and place my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
Now, we can’t blame Thomas too much, at least, not more than we blame the other apostles. They all had to see before they believed, too, although, to be fair, John believed before He saw Jesus Himself, seeing only the empty tomb that morning. But Thomas was stubborn in his unbelief, wasn’t he? Angry, even. It was a classic example of putting the Lord to the test. I will not believe in Him; I will not believe those whom He has sent; I will not believe what He promised, until He proves it, until I can experience it with my sense of sight and with my sense of touch.
How foolish, how ashamed he must have felt one week later, on the following Sunday, when Jesus finally appeared again, out of nowhere, and turned immediately to Thomas and said, Put your finger here. Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put your hand here and place it into my side, and do not be unbelieving any longer, but believing. Yes, Thomas, in his weakness, in his despair, in his fear, had tested the Lord. But the Lord took pity on him and gave him what he needed—what he needed, not only to believe in the resurrection, but to become an eyewitness of it. That generation of believers, who witnessed the Lord’s resurrection from the dead, would form the foundation of the Christian Church, by God’s own design. They should have all believed before seeing, because of Jesus’ own promise that He would rise, and because of the testimony of the faithful who had seen. But it was still essential for all of them to see.
It’s not essential for anyone else, though. Jesus said to Thomas, “Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.” But, if the apostles all needed to see to believe, why doesn’t anyone else? Because, throughout the coming millennia, the word of God, the word of the apostles, and the Holy Spirit working through that word, would be, as Paul calls it, the power of God for salvation to all who believe. The word of God is living and active, it says in Hebrews 4. My word will not return to Me empty, says the Lord, but will accomplish what I please, He says through Isaiah. That’s why John could so confidently write: To be sure, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are 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.
Through the powerful, living and active word of God, you who have never seen the Lord Jesus have believed in Him—that He is the Christ, the Son of God, that He suffered and died for your sins, that He rose from the dead, and that God, through His appointed ministers, forgives you your sins for Christ’s sake and has given you eternal life in Him. Though you have not seen Him, Peter writes, you love Him; and though you do not see Him now, yet, believing in Him, you are filled with unspeakable joy and glory, because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. When doubts arise, when your faith is shaken, turn to the Word of Christ, where the risen Lord shows you His hands, and His side, and calls out to you, as He did to Thomas, “Believe!” Believe Jesus! And the Spirit of Jesus will see to it that you do. Amen.
