The living Christ authorizes His ministers, like Thomas

Posted on April 27, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Easter 1

1 John 5:4-10  +  John 20:19-31

The order of events on the first Easter Sunday is a little hard to pin down. Each Gospel writer was moved by the Holy Spirit to include certain details about that day, not always in order, but always with obvious excitement, even writing, as they were, several decades later, still so excited to share with the world some parts of the resurrection story. Matthew skips Jesus’ Easter appearance to His disciples entirely and takes us straight to His meeting with them on a mountain in Galilee some weeks later. Mark takes us to the table in the upper room where the eleven were gathered—the same table where they had celebrated Passover with Jesus and had received the Lord’s Supper from Jesus a few days earlier—and tells us how Jesus rebuked them for disbelieving the reports of those who had seen Him alive. Luke includes that story about the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, which we heard on Wednesday, and adds a little bit about Jesus eating a piece of broiled fish in front of the disciples, to prove that He was not just alive again, but alive with His own, real, human body made of flesh and blood.

For the apostle John, it had been nearly six decades between the resurrection and the time he wrote his Gospel, but the Holy Spirit still called to his mind certain details from that first Easter Sunday that no other Evangelist had recorded. And so we have this wonderful account of Thomas and his struggle to believe, and, as part of that account, a repetition of that special authority Jesus gave to His Church through the apostolic ministry to forgive or to retain sins in Jesus’ name.

First, let’s have a look at Thomas. Jesus appeared to ten of the twelve disciples on Easter evening, and, according to Luke’s account, it seems that other disciples were there with them, too. Judas was dead by suicide. Thomas was out and about. The doors were locked, for fear of the Jews, because, if they succeeded in killing Jesus Himself, why should they stop with Him? Why not go after the ones closest to Him, even as they had been planning on killing Lazarus, too? Worse, if God had not seen fit to rescue His beloved, sinless Son from the Jews, what hope did His disciples have left?

And then Jesus appeared in the middle of the room before their very eyes, just as He had disappeared before the very eyes of the two disciples in Emmaus, as soon as they recognized Him. Jesus had real flesh and blood and yet was able to appear and disappear at will, no longer submitting to the laws of nature as He had before. He doesn’t have to. He’s true God as well as true man, and does as He pleases.

He greeted His fearful disciples with a word of peace, and after a few minutes (and a few bites of food) they were convinced that it was really Him. And they rejoiced. And after a little while, Jesu disappeared again. Why didn’t He just wait for Thomas to get back? Because He wanted you and me to have this story, and to learn a lesson from it.

Thomas walked in the door a moment too late, and he wouldn’t believe his brother apostles, or the women who had reported seeing Jesus earlier that day, or the two who had come back from Emmaus. “Not unless I see the nail prints in His hands and put my fingers into them. Not unless I can thrust my hand into His pierced side. I know what I saw with my own eyes: a Jesus who was crucified, who died, who was pierced with a spear and whose blood came pouring out. You don’t come back from that. No one does. Human reason and experience say so.”

And the Lord allowed Thomas to stew in the unbelief that flowed from his human reason and experience for a whole week, until the following Sunday, and waited until Thomas was with them before appearing again. Peace to you, He said, and then turned and looked straight at Thomas, and held out His hands, still bearing the nail prints as a testimony to His suffering, and said, “Reach out your hand, Thomas, and put your fingers here. Take your hand, Thomas, and thrust it into My side, if you must. Whatever it takes. Be no longer unbelieving, but believing!” And Thomas said, “My Lord and my God!”

Yeah, he finally got it. The one whom he had been referring to as Lord for the last three years was also God. That’s why He could rise from the dead. Man can’t conquer death, but God can. And now Thomas knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this man, Jesus, is the very God who has power over life and death.

With that in mind, consider the authority Jesus spoke upon His apostles on that first Easter Sunday. First, He breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit! The breathing on them was a picture of the Holy Spirit proceeding from His mouth like breath, the Spirit whom He, their Lord and their God, would send upon them 50 days from then, on the day of Pentecost. When the Spirit came upon them on that day, like breath from heaven, they were to remember this act of Jesus breathing on them and understand that it was Jesus, from the right hand of God, sending the Holy Spirit down upon His Church to begin the lengthy process of building it until He comes again.

And the tools for building it would be, not hammers, but keys. The keys of the kingdom of heaven. Keys that would be wielded with heaven’s own authority. Keys not made of metal, but keys made of words. As my Father has sent me, so I also send you…If you forgive the sins of any, their sins are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, their sins are retained. This is not a new command or authority. It’s the same one Jesus had spoken about months earlier. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. It’s the same command and authority recorded with different words by Mark: Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. It’s the same command and authority referred to in Luke’s Gospel, where Jesus told them that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And it’s the same command and authority that He gave them again on that mountain in Galilee, recorded in Matthew’s Gospel: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. Jesus, as Lord and God, gave this command and authority to His Church, through the apostolic ministry, to preach the Gospel and to administer the Sacraments in the name of Jesus, who is both Lord and God. That’s how He would build His Church, through what we often refer to as the Means or the “tools” of Grace, wielded by the ministers whom He would continue to send until the end of the age.

Using the keys or the Means of Grace includes the speaking and the baptizing in the name of God that Peter did on the day of Pentecost, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins! It includes the appeal of St. Paul to the jailor in Philippi, Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved!, or as he summarized it to the Corinthians, Be reconciled to God! For God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. It includes the administration of the Lord’s Supper, too, where God’s forgiveness is handed out to God’s believing people, one by one. And it also includes, where necessary, the retaining of sins, as Peter did with Ananias and Sapphira, or with Simon the Sorcerer, or as Paul did with the sinner in Corinth who was flaunting his adultery. Whether it’s the forgiving of sins or the retaining of sins, Jesus set it up in His Church going forward that God would deal with men and build His kingdom through the keys wielded by the apostolic ministry of His Holy Christian Church.

A ministry that included men like Thomas, who had their moments of shameful unbelief. A ministry that included men like Peter, who had faltered before and would falter again, needing to be corrected by a minister like Paul, who had a previous reputation of locking Christians up in jail. A ministry that included also the Apostle John, who carried out his God-given ministry throughout the first century, of which this Gospel of John was a part. With the authority and with the inspiration of the Spirit that the Lord Jesus gave him, he wrote for us, not everything that Jesus ever said or did, but only the things the Spirit guided him to remember and to record, all for a purpose, which he states at the end of our reading: that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, by believing, you may have life in his name.

This is the same ministry, with the same Means of Grace, that has been passed on from generation to generation, so that the Church would always have the necessary, Spirit-filled tools for creating and preserving faith. This is the same ministry that is being carried out among you today, which you support, and which you are here making use of right now, according to Christ’s command. He never planned for any of you to see Him in this life, as the apostles did. What He did plan for was for you to hear His Word, to believe through what you hear, and to continue to receive the ministry of His Word and Sacraments, so that you might make it all the way through this earthly life, still hoping, still rejoicing, still believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, crucified and risen from the dead, and that, by believing, you, too, may have life in His name. May God grant it, for Jesus’ sake! Amen.

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Revealed in the preaching of His death and resurrection

Posted on April 23, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Week of Easter

Luke 24:13-35

What a wonderful story we have before us in the Gospel during this Easter week! What a beautiful scene St. Luke paints for us! Two downcast disciples of Jesus—not from among the eleven apostles but obviously sincere believers in Jesus who had spent considerable time with Jesus and the Eleven—walking sullenly down to the village of Emmaus. They had thought that Jesus was the Christ. They had thought that He would redeem Israel. But after seeing Him suffer and die two days earlier, rejected by the leaders of Israel, they thought they must’ve made a mistake. Jesus couldn’t be the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament Scriptures, could He?

Then Jesus comes out of nowhere, walking alongside them, and doesn’t allow them to recognize Him. Why? Why not just announce Himself and begin the Easter celebration? Because they needed a firmer foundation than their eyesight alone could provide. They needed to know the Christ from the Scriptures, and know Him better than they did, because what they knew about the Christ from the Scriptures up until now was far too vague and not nearly enough. They knew He would be a miracle-working Prophet. They knew He would redeem Israel. They knew He would reign on the throne of His father David forever. That was all true, but, again, it’s not nearly enough, which is obvious, because, according to their understanding, the Christ should not have suffered and died.

So Jesus, still not letting them recognize Him, rebukes them: Foolish men! You’re so slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Didn’t the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter into His glory? And then He patiently walked them through the whole Old Testament, showing them passage after passage that spoke of the suffering of the Christ.

Surely He pointed them to the very first promise of a Savior, given to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where God said to the devil, in his serpent-form: I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. They probably focused on the “He will crush your head” part, without ever putting it together that the devil would also attack the woman’s Offspring, striking His heel, as a serpent strikes the heel of a man—a strike that can often be fatal, and in the case of the Christ, it was.

Then Jesus surely walked them through the events of Holy Week, maybe going through it all in order. Maybe He reminded them of Zechariah’s prophecy of the King riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. Or maybe He began with another prophecy from Zechariah, prophesying Judas’ betrayal: “So they paid me thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said to me, ‘Throw it to the potter’—the handsome price at which they valued me!”

Then on to Maundy Thursday in the Garden of Gethsemane, He likely quoted Zechariah again, telling how all Jesus’ disciples would flee when the Christ was arrested: “Awake, sword, against my shepherd, against the man who is close to me! … Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.”

He could have continued with Psalm 109, where David prophesies the wicked and false accusations that were made against Jesus by the Jews: For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me, speaking against me with lying tongues … In return for my love they accuse me. And Isaiah speaks of how they would commit violence against the Christ, and about He would respond to their attacks: I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.

But it wouldn’t be the Jews alone conspiring against the Christ. David had said in Psalm 2, Why do the nations rage, And the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us break Their bonds in pieces And cast away Their cords from us.” And so the Jews got the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, involved, who also conspired with King Herod in Jesus’ trial, fulfilling this prophecy, even as the crowds cried out, Crucify Him! Crucify Him!, fulfilling a prophecy in Psalm 69, Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head. And then Pilate condemned Him, even though, as Isaiah had said would happen, He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth…By oppression and judgment he was taken away.

As Jesus walked along with the two disciples, getting closer to Emmaus, He must have quoted extensively from Isaiah 52 and 53, where it says of the coming Christ: “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain … Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering … He was pierced for our transgressions … By his wounds we are healed … He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.

Yes, He was wounded and “pierced,” as Psalm 22 said He would be. They pierce my hands and my feet. And they divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment. Meanwhile, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them, fulfilling another prophecy, He made intercession for the transgressors. And He was numbered with the transgressors, one hanging on a cross on His right and another on His left.

Maybe these two disciples on the road to Emmaus had been there on Good Friday to hear the chief priests and Pharisees mocking Jesus with almost the exact words from Psalm 22, where the Messiah lamented: I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. All those who see Me ridicule Me; They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, “He trusted in the Lord, let Him rescue Him; Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!”

You have to think that Jesus reminded the disciples of the words He cried out after three hours of intense suffering in darkness, words taken directly from Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And when He said, “I thirst,” the soldiers fulfilled the prophecy from Psalm 69, They gave me vinegar for my thirst.

The death of Christ was specifically prophesied in several places. In Psalm 22: You have brought Me to the dust of death. In Isaiah: He was cut off from the land of the living… he poured out his life unto death. And in Daniel: After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing.”

Even after He died, the prophecies continued. When the soldiers found Jesus dead, they didn’t break His bones as they had done with the other two, fulfilling the Passover Lamb prophecy from Genesis, Not one of his bones will be broken. Instead, they pierced His side with a spear, fulfilling Zechariah’s prophecy, “They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child.” And then, even in His burial in rich Joseph’s tomb, Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled: “He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death.”

But death would not be the end for the Christ. After His suffering and death, the prophecies continued from Psalm 22: For the LORD has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted One; nor has He hidden His face from Him; nut when He cried to Him, the LORD heard. Or Psalm 16, which Peter would later quote: For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life. Or from Isaiah 53: After You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.

All the while, as Jesus unfolded and decrypted the Scriptures for these two disciples, their hearts were burning within them. How could they have missed all these prophecies? They weren’t mistaken about Jesus being the Christ. On the contrary, the Christ had to suffer everything that Jesus suffered, in order to redeem Israel from sin, death, and the devil. And He also had to rise from the dead to “justify many” through His Gospel, and to build His kingdom, which would include both Jews and Gentiles, and to reign over God’s people forever. So, maybe the stories of His empty tomb this morning make sense! Maybe the tomb is empty, because Jesus is the Christ, who not only died, but has risen from the dead! Maybe His kingdom is just getting started!

And so it was. And so Jesus revealed Himself to those disciples at the dinner table. But only after revealing Himself to them first through the Word of God. That was always His plan. To build His Church through the Word of God, which came to include the eyewitness accounts of those who saw the risen Lord. So keep studying the Scriptures, and the Holy Spirit will continue to open your hearts, too, so that you see the Lord’s death and resurrection, as they were both foretold and fulfilled. This is how the Lord will comfort your hearts in every trouble, in every trial. This is how the living Christ will grow and extend His kingdom until the end of the age, through the preaching of His suffering, death, and resurrection. And you get to be a part of it! Amen.

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The empty tomb is peace for all who believe

Posted on April 20, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Easter Sunday

1 Corinthians 5:6-8  +  Mark 16:1-8

Fellow believers in Christ crucified: The crucified One is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia! Praise the LORD!

When we say that Jesus lives, we don’t mean it figuratively. We don’t mean that He lives in our hearts, or in our memories. We mean that the real Son of God, who took on real flesh and blood, born of the virgin Mary, who truly suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried, actually came back to life on the third day after His death, stepped out of His tomb, and, throughout that day and the coming days, appeared openly to all His disciples—who were glad, but surprised, to see Him.

It really shouldn’t have surprised them as much as it did. They had confessed Him to be the Christ, the Son of the living God. And He, the Christ, had told His disciples how He would be nailed to a cross, die, and rise on the third day, which was the very same thing that was prophesied about the Christ in the words of King David in Psalm 16 a thousand years before, “I have set the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to the grave, or let your holy one see corruption.”

As the apostles pointed out to the Jewish crowds later on, King David, who wrote those words of Psalm 16, most certainly died and most certainly decayed in his grave. But the Holy One about whom he was writing, the Son of David, the Christ—He was not abandoned to the grave or left in the tomb. He was raised from the dead.

That’s what the angel announced to those wonderful, devoted women who went to the tomb that first Easter morning to serve Jesus one last time, to finish taking care of His body, which, they assumed, was already beginning to see corruption. They expected to have trouble rolling away the big stone that blocked the entrance, but, no, they saw that it had already been rolled away, and they saw an angel waiting there to give them the good news. Do not be afraid. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, the One who was crucified. He has risen; He is not here. See the place where they laid Him!

Wouldn’t you like to have seen it, too? The place where they laid Him? The stone rolled away, the empty tomb, the neatly folded linens lying there, no longer wrapped around Jesus’ body, and the angel sitting where Jesus had been? Or what if you had seen the empty tomb? Then what? Then you would have been just as afraid, just as terrified as those women were. Because an empty tomb, all by itself, doesn’t calm anyone’s fears.

The fact that Jesus’ tomb was empty, the fact that the Son of David, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, has risen from the dead, is neither good news nor bad news, all by itself. It just is. It’s a fact. It happened. But what does it mean? Is it a fact that saves or is it a fact that damns? The only way to know what it means is to hear what God reveals about it in the preaching of the gospel.

And what does God reveal in the gospel about the Son of David, Jesus Christ, risen from the dead?

Well, in Psalm 2, a Psalm about the coming Christ, it says, Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him. So those who take refuge in the risen Son of God are blessed! But those who do not seek refuge in Him will be the objects of His wrath and will perish eternally.

According to the gospel, then, the empty tomb of Jesus means that His enemies and all who hate Him or His beloved Church had better be very afraid. The resurrection of Jesus is terrible news for the devil and his demons. It’s terrible news for the one who denies the existence of God, or who wants to get to heaven by serving some other god, or by offering God his own goodness and decency. It’s also terrible news for all who refuse to repent of their sins. Because if Jesus is dead, then you get to decide what’s right and wrong for your life, and then, when you’re dead, you’re dead. That’s it. But if Jesus is alive, then everything He said is true, and there will also be a resurrection of all the dead and a Day of reckoning, for all. So for the impenitent and unbelieving, the empty tomb of Jesus is cause for fear.

But for those who want a sure refuge from God’s wrath, for those who wish to be reconciled to God through the death of Christ, for those who want Jesus for a Savior, the gospel reveals this truth: that Jesus was delivered up for our sins and raised to life for our justification. His death was sufficient payment for all sin, for every sin, for the worst sinner; and His resurrection means that all who hope in Him, all who trust in Him, all who look to Him for forgiveness of their sins are declared innocent before God’s own courtroom in heaven. The empty tomb means the justification of all who believe in the risen Lord Jesus.

And with justification comes every gift and benefit of Christ: the adoption as God’s children, the full acceptance into eternal life, the daily forgiveness of sins in this Christian Church, and the promise of your own empty tomb when Jesus returns with salvation for His waiting people.

But even those faithful women didn’t understand all that when they first arrived at the tomb on that first day of the week. Jesus’ empty tomb, all by itself, is still a scary thing, and those women remained afraid until, later that morning, they saw Jesus for themselves and, more importantly, heard His gospel, His word of peace. Then they rejoiced with a joy that nothing could ever take away.

You have to see Jesus for yourself, too. But not with your eyes. Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed, Jesus said. Believed what? Believed that the tomb of Jesus was and remains empty? Yes, but only if you believe in the One who stepped out of that tomb. Believe in God’s promise of forgiveness in Christ. Believe in His Gospel. Believe in the word of God the Father, who emptied Jesus’ tomb by raising His Son from the dead. This word from God that He has commissioned me to preach to you today is better than seeing a thousand empty tombs. Because here in the Word you don’t see the place where Jesus isn’t. You actually get to see Jesus in the only way that can save you from eternal death and grant you eternal life. Because here in the Word of God, here in the Sacrament of Christ’s Holy Supper, the risen Lord Jesus comes to you today with a message: “He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” Those words would be utterly meaningless if Jesus had remained in the tomb. But He didn’t. So believe in Him who rose from the dead, because, for you who believe, the empty tomb of the crucified One means peace with God, and joy, and life everlasting. Amen.

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The risen Lord has called you by name

Posted on April 19, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki

Sermon for the Vigil of Easter

John 20:1-18

The Gospels all tell us that a group of women went to Jesus’ tomb very early on Sunday morning to attend to His hastily-wrapped body which was put to rest just as the sun was setting on Friday. But it’s St. John who focuses on Mary Magdalene. She got there, bright and early, with the other women, but as soon as she saw the stone where it shouldn’t have been, it seems that she didn’t go in right away or wait for the other women, but ran back ahead of them to tell Peter and John that Jesus was missing.

She was so upset. So sad. Many women had followed Jesus, believed in Jesus, and served Him faithfully. But Mary’s love for Jesus was special. He had driven demons out of her. He had welcomed her back into God’s family after she had sinfully wandered away from it. Instead of treating her as an outcast, He had loved her as a sister and as a daughter of God. And now, her Lord had suddenly been tortured, falsely condemned, and crucified, and she didn’t understand why. On top of that, His body appeared to have been cruelly stolen from its final resting place. It didn’t even occur to her that the tomb might be empty because the Lord had overcome death.

She wasn’t alone. Jesus’ disciples weren’t expecting an Easter Sunday celebration, either, and they, of all people, should have been, because the Lord had spelled it out for them over and over again. But the Lord didn’t only love Mary and His disciples when they listened well and showed a steadfast, immovable faith. He also loved them when they faltered, and had a plan for meeting them all after He rose from the dead. As He had promised His disciples in the Upper Room, The world will see Me no more. But you will see Me!

Mary ran back to the tomb, this time with Peter and John, who went into the tomb to see for themselves. They found nothing but the grave clothes Jesus had been buried in, neatly arranged on the bed where He had lain—clear evidence that no thieves had snuck in to hurry His body away. Peter left, confused, still in unbelief. John left with hope, believing. But Mary stayed. So upset. So sad. She looked down into the tomb. And there were two men there—angels dressed in pure white, sitting where Jesus had been. Didn’t it seem strange to her? They weren’t there a minute ago when Peter and John went in. Where did they come from? What were they doing there? She’s too upset to think, too sad to hope, so sure that Jesus is still dead.

Woman, why are you weeping? the angels asked. Grief was simply the wrong reaction to this empty tomb. A tomb occupied by a dead Jesus, now that would be cause for weeping. But not this. This empty tomb should cause you to jump for joy.

Woman, why are you weeping?, Jesus asked, standing behind her. Whom are you seeking? She thinks He’s the gardener. The tears and sadness are blinding her to the truth, not allowing her to remember Jesus’ words, not allowing her to hope. But the Good Shepherd calls His sheep by her name, “Mary.” And now she recognizes His voice and His face. And everything is all right again.

She takes hold of Him and doesn’t want to let Him go. But He says, Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’ ” In other words, I have work still to do before My ascension. And you have a part it in, too. Be the first to go and tell My brothers the good news, that I am alive, and that all is well between them and God.

As the risen Lord Jesus once called out to Mary, through her tears, and made everything all right again, so He now calls out to you in the Gospel. He called you by name in Holy Baptism and now reminds you, He’s no longer in the tomb, and no one took Him away. He defeated death, because He was obedient unto death. He’s no longer in the tomb, and because of that, there’s no reason for Christians to mourn and weep like the world does. He’s no longer in the tomb, and because of that, you won’t be in yours for long, either. He’ll come and speak your name again, after you’ve slept for a while in your tomb. And then all the tears and sorrow will be erased. Believe Mary Magdalene’s story. Believe the apostles and the more than 500 early Christians who all saw Jesus after His resurrection. And join them in announcing to the world that Christ is risen from the dead. And because He lives, all who believe in Him will live together with Him, in glory, and in love, forever. Amen.

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The love of God on full display

Posted on April 18, 2025 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for Good Friday

John 18-19

The words you heard last night from John’s Gospel should be ringing loudly in your ears today: Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. Ponder with me now some of the brilliant acts of love Jesus showed to His own in the events of Good Friday, as recorded in John’s Gospel.

It began in the Garden of Gethsemane. John doesn’t include the dread and agony Jesus felt in the Garden, or the anguish behind His three prayers. Father, take this cup from Me! Yet not My will but Yours be done! No, John doesn’t include Jesus’ requests to take the cup away. Instead, he picks up the story with Jesus’ determination to drink it. When Peter rashly tried to intervene with his sword, Jesus told him to put it away. Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given Me? His love for His Father was greater than His love for His own comfort, for His own safety, for His own life. And the object of His Father’s love, and therefore His own love, was “His own who were in the world,” and His own who would be in the world—for all who would seek God through the cup that Jesus was about to drink.

His love for His own continued as He spoke to the armed soldiers, If you seek Me, let these men go, that the saying might be fulfilled which He spoke, “Of those whom You gave Me I have lost none.” For His part, Jesus didn’t want the disciples to be arrested or harmed. But for their part, as the other Evangelists tell us, they weren’t willing to be arrested with Him anyway. They all forsook Him and fled, Matthew says, another instance where His love for them continued, even as their love for Him gave way to fear.

Speaking of that, Peter’s threefold denial stands in stark contrast to the Lord’s love. One of the early martyrs, Polycarp, was commanded to deny Christ, as Peter did, on pain of execution. But Polycarp replied, For eighty-six years I have served Him, and He has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King and my Savior? If only Peter had had such conviction! But in the moment, he fell, as the Lord told him he would, while he denied that, too! And still, Luke tells us that, at that moment of Peter’s third denial, the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter realized the gravity of what he had done. He went out and wept bitterly. But love keeps no record of wrongs. Peter repented, and trusted that Jesus’ love was strong enough to forgive. And it was. And it still is.

The Lord’s love was on display as He allowed Himself to be viciously attacked, falsely accused, judged by four separate courts, scourged, mocked, brought out for all to see with a crown of thorns on His head, and a royal purple robe on His back, and stick in His hand for a scepter. “Here is your king,” they mocked. Yes, dear Christians, here is your King. This is what love looks like.

The King was then forced to bear His own cross toward the hill called Calvary. He bore His cross, John tells us—literally, dragged it as far as He could. Maybe He wasn’t going fast enough for the guards, because they then forced a bystander named Simon of Cyrene to bear it for Him. Thankfully, the King, in His love, has not commanded or asked anyone in the world to bear His cross for Him, or to drink His cup of suffering. His suffering, His cross-bearing, was unique, because on His cross were nailed the charges from God’s holy Law that stood against all mankind, making it the heaviest cross ever made. He hasn’t told you to bear that weight. You couldn’t if you tried. Instead, He calls upon all who wish to follow Him to the victory of the resurrection to take up and bear our own crosses, daily, because Calvary must come first for all of us. But after seeing the love of the Lord Jesus as He bore the cross weighed down with your sins and guilt, how could you not love Him in return? How could you not gladly take up your own cross and accept whatever suffering you must bear, not for your sins, but purely for Jesus’ sake?

While our King hung on the cross for those six hours or so, He spoke seven times, seven “words.” Matthew and Mark record one word, Luke records three, and John records three of his own. With His mother Mary and His beloved apostle John at the foot of the cross, Jesus’ love was shown once again: Woman, behold, your son! Behold, your mother! The dutiful love of a Son toward His mother, placing her in the care of not just anyone, but of the apostle who would outlive all the rest, and who would provide faithful care, both physical and spiritual, as Jesus’ time on earth was drawing to its close.

I thirst!, He cried, and surely He was thirsty. But it wasn’t to quench His thirst that He said it. It wasn’t to enjoy one last sip of “delicious” vinegar from a filthy sponge. It was, again, for love. It was to fulfill yet another prophecy from Psalm 22, the crucifixion Psalm, so that the world would have all the Scriptural evidence we need, proof upon proof upon proof that Jesus is the promised Christ, the Son of the living God, and that His death on the cross was part of God’s plan all along for the redemption of mankind. But more than that, it was to point us all to the end of that Psalm, because it prophesied not only the death of the Son of David, but also His eventual resurrection.

It is finished!, He cried, again, not for His own benefit, but for ours, so that we may know and be absolutely certain that full atonement for all sins has been made by Jesus, and that no other sacrifice for sins can or should be made. But for all time, the finished sacrifice of Christ on the cross avails and is valid for any and all who will use it, for any and all who seek to be reconciled to God by it, that is, for any and all who believe.

Truly, Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. Did He ever! In Jesus’ love you will find peace. You will find forgiveness. You will find a God who loves you enough to suffer and die for you, because that’s how much He wants to spend eternity with you, with you who have come to know His love, which will forever shine forth from the cross of His beloved Son, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Amen.

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