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Second Sunday of Easter

Akron

April 19, 2015

John 20:19-31 Easter 2

Let us Pray:
Almighty and everlasting God, You desire not the death of a sinner, but that all would
repent and live. Hear our prayers as we come before You in sorrow for our sins and
faith to believe that You forgive even the most heinous sins. Take away our iniquity,
and turn us from those things that entangle us and lead us away from You, the living
and true God. Gather us into Your holy Church to the glory of Your name; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.
I am so happy that Jesus has promised that all who believe in Him will live with Him
forever. Our short lives here on this earth are simply not long enough to consider the
wonderful things that our God has done for us. Each event in the life of Jesus gives us
more and more to contemplate. Meditation on the Son of God taking on human flesh at
Christmas could last a lifetime. The Lord's Prayer has enough in it to keep us to the end
of our days. There is a lifetime of study in each of the seven words from the cross as
shared from the Gospel accounts. No matter how often we open the pages of Holy
Scripture, it has new things to teach us. How marvelous it will be to think on the things
of God as we live in the presence of Christ for an eternity.
The resurrection certainly is one of those events that has a lifetime of teaching in it. So
it is that we continue to contemplate the events of that first Easter day on this Second
Sunday of Easter.
Today's Gospel gives us an account of two appearances of Jesus to His disciples. It is
the familiar account that we read every year on the Second Sunday of Easter. The first
time Jesus appeared, Thomas was not in church. The second time, he was. However,
there is a lot more going on in this Gospel account than just Thomas.
It is helpful to remember that all of the disciples were total pagans on that
weekend. Jesus had promised that He would rise from the dead, but none of the
disciples believed Him. When Jesus died on the cross, His disciples thought they would
never see Him again - at least not until the general resurrection from the dead on the
Last Day, whenever that was. For a few days on that weekend, all of the disciples were
unbelievers.
This is a great comfort to us. Each and every one of us has those days when we don't
feel very Christian. Each and every one has those days when we wonder why we keep
on trying. Our life is full of doubts. While life seems to be coming up roses for others, it
seems to be coming up stink cabbage for us.

When we have days like that, we can look to the gentle way in which Jesus showed
Himself to His disciples. Note that Jesus did not wait for the disciples to look for Him,
but He went after them - even through locked doors. What a blessing they received
when the Lord greeted them with such kindness, "Peace be with you." Jesus appeared
to His pagan disciples and gave them His peace. He did not punish. He did not
reject. He did not scold. He gave them His peace.
He gave them every proof that He had kept His promise - that He had risen from the
dead. He showed them the scars of the crucifixion and the spear. With these signs they
saw that this was indeed their friend and master who had died on the cross but was now
alive again. In this kind and gentle way, He restored their hope and renewed their faith.
Here we see the friendly heart of Jesus as He comes to bring comfort to all who are
troubled or frightened. He comforted and strengthened His disciples so that our Gospel
states that the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus is kindly disposed to
all who are needy and anxious. He comes to them to bring them the comfort of the
forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
After Jesus comforted and assured His disciples that He was indeed alive, He did
something incredible. He ordained these doubting disciples as His Apostles. Jesus said
to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending
you." A disciple and an apostle are not the same thing. A disciple is a student who
follows the teachings of a particular teacher. An apostle is one who is sent out. Every
apostle must be a disciple, but Jesus did not send every disciple as an apostle. When
Jesus told these disciples that He was sending them, they became His apostles.
Jesus told His disciples that they were His apostles just as He Himself was an apostle of
God the Father. He said, "As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you." The
Father sent Jesus. So Jesus is the apostle of the Father. In the same way, Jesus sent
His apostles to bring the message of salvation to the world. When we hear the words of
the apostles, we are hearing the words of Jesus, and when we hear the words of Jesus,
we are hearing the words of the Father. It is a truly great and glorious thing for me and
the other preachers of the word to have this treasure that Jesus gave to the apostles.
As great and glorious as these gifts are, Jesus gave even more gifts to His apostles. He
gave them the authority to forgive and retain sins. He breathed on them and said to
them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if
you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld." Just as God breathed the breath of
life into Adam so that he became a living soul, so also Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into
His apostles. The Holy Spirit would work through these apostles to deliver the
forgiveness of sins that Jesus earned for us on the cross.

The Holy Spirit would also work through these apostles to withhold forgiveness from
those people who refuse to repent.
It is an amazing thing that the mouth of every honest preacher can be Christ's
mouth. When a faithful pastor forgives your sins in the name of Jesus, he is placing the
very forgiveness of Jesus Christ on you. He is not giving you his forgiveness, but the
Holy Spirit works through the pastor to deliver the true forgiveness of Jesus Christ to
you. As I often say: it is worth it to come to the Lord's Divine Service even if all you
hear is Christ's words from the pastor's mouth as he says, "I forgive you all your sins, in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." With these words, the
pastor really does give Christ's forgiveness to you. With these words Jesus promises to
bring heaven itself into your presence.
It is very likely that if you asked the average person on the street if they wanted to go
to heaven, they would say yes. How sad it is that so many people don't know that Jesus
Himself promises to give us the very gifts of heaven in His Divine Service to us. How
sad it is that Christ has placed the very gift of forgiveness in the mouths of faithful
pastors and so many people simply walk right by and pay no more attention to them
than they would to a mooing cow. How sad it is that so many people do not know about
the precious gifts of heaven that faithful pastors deeply yearn to give to them.
Today's Gospel gives us an account of the great gifts that Jesus desires for us. He
patiently ignored the doubting hearts of all the disciples in order to show them His risen
body. Then He sent those disciples to be apostles so that the church down through the
ages would have the very word of God through the mouths and pens of those
apostles. He puts His own forgiveness - the very forgiveness that He earned with His
life's blood on the tree of the cross - He puts that forgiveness into the mouths of the
faithful pastors of His church. In all these ways, He sends the Holy Spirit to establish
and strengthen our faith - the very faith that believes in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness
of sins and receives all the gifts that Christ gives to us.
Today's account from the Gospel shows us how gracious Jesus is - not only with
Thomas, but with all of the disciples. Even though the disciples denied and abandoned
Jesus - even though they believed He was dead and gone - even though they continued
to sin daily, Jesus did not reject them. Instead, He made them part of His plan to
proclaim the Gospel to the world.
From this Gospel account we learn that Jesus does not deal with us as we deserve, but
He is gracious. He seeks us out as sheep who have gone astray. In spite of our many
failings and sins, He continues to supply us with His loving and gracious forgiveness. In
spite of our many failings, He has chosen to make us His forever. Amen