Sermon: Wednesday of Easter 2 - 2021

14 April 2021

Text: John 20:19-31

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

On the evening of the first Easter Sunday, our risen Lord Jesus Christ walked miraculously into a locked room to appear to the disciples.  He said to them, “Peace be with you.”  For He won the war against Satan, and was now sharing the peace that He secured in His victory over the devil.

Some people might be tempted to believe that this was some kind of ghost that appeared to them.  But what does Jesus do, dear friends?  “He showed them His hands and His side.”  In other words, He showed them the wounds from which He bled in His body.  So when Jesus walked into the locked room, He did so in His physical being – not symbolically, and not spiritually.  This was His body.  This was His blood. 

“And the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.” 

Jesus did something else with His inner circle of disciples.  “As the Father has sent Me,” He said, “even so I am sending you.”  The Greek word for “I send” is “apostello.”  So Jesus is ordaining these men into the preaching office, being sent into the world to make disciples through the ministry of Word and Sacrament.  “He breathed on them and said to them, ,‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”  And He authorized them to forgive the sins of those who repent, and to retain the sins of those who refuse to repent.  So through this office of the ministry, Jesus absolves, and Jesus excommunicates.  He delegates this authority to the apostles.

Now there was one problem.  Thomas missed his own ordination, for “he was not with them when Jesus came.”  When he showed up, the apostles told him what had happened, that the risen Lord Jesus Christ appeared to them in the flesh, and showed them His wounds.  This was no illusion, no delusion, and no false vision.

But Thomas was having a hard time with this.  He refused to believe, and thus earned for himself the nickname “Doubting Thomas.”  “Unless I see in His hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

Fortunately for St. Thomas, the Lord was patient with his doubts and hardness of heart.  The very next Sunday – the day of the week that we call the Lord’s Day, the day when we Christians gather in His name to hear His Word and partake of His flesh and blood – Jesus appeared again.  And “although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’” 

Here is Jesus establishing a regular greeting for Christians and a liturgical way of worshiping Him on the Lord’s Day.  And this time, Thomas was there.  Jesus invited him to do the very thing that Thomas said would have to happen for him to believe.  Thomas saw and touched the body of Christ, and laid hands upon the wounds from which He bled. 

“My Lord and my God!” exclaimed Thomas, no longer doubting, but believing and confessing.  “My Lord and my God!” is both a creed and a prayer of praise.  It acknowledges the risen Jesus as God who is still in the flesh, and in calling Him Lord, Thomas places himself under Jesus’ command, for he too will be sent out to preach the Gospel and make disciples through Holy Baptism.

There are ancient churches in India that claim to have been planted by St. Thomas, the once-doubting apostle.  Normally, when pastors are ordained, hands are laid on them.  In Thomas’s case, He laid His hands on the Lord – and He confessed Jesus as His Lord and God.

Our Lord said, “Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.”  We have not seen our Lord in His earthly ministry, dear friends, but we have encountered Jesus in His flesh and blood, as He promises to be with us physically, even as He shares Himself with us sacramentally.  The walls of our churches do not prevent His bodily presence any more than the walls of the upper room kept Him out that first Easter.

And Jesus continues to come each Lord’s Day, standing among us by means of His promise and His command: “This is My body…. This is My blood….  Do not disbelieve, but believe.”

These events were recorded for us by the evangelists – including St. John, whose Gospel spoke to us anew today.  John reports that these things were recorded in His book for the same reason Jesus allowed Thomas to put his hand into His wounds: “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” 

And so we join St. Thomas the Believer in his confession and prayer of praise: “My Lord and My God!”  Amen.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.