Text: John
20:19-31 (Ezek 37:1-14, 1 John 5:4-10)
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
The unbelieving world, and even some Christians, mock what just happened here. For Timothy Hart was baptized. And according to Scripture, he was born again “by water and the Spirit,” by the “washing of regeneration.” He became a believer in our Lord Jesus Christ unto salvation.
Scoffers will say that Timothy cannot be a believer, because he lacks the rational capacity for belief. But Jesus says: “Let the little children come to Me,” and refers to the “little ones who believe in Me.” Not one person objected to our Lord’s assertion that infants and toddlers can believe. That’s because we hear the word “believe” differently today. For we live in a day of rationalism. Our godless culture has put reason on a throne, if not on an altar.
But belief, that is, faith, as it is used in Scripture, is more like the word “trust.” And to trust is to become like a child – which is just how our Lord tells us to be as Christians. To the world, being believing and trusting is childish, not childlike. But this is how Jesus says that we inherit the kingdom, dear friends. You must “turn and become like children.” Childlike, just like Timothy. He cannot recite the creed yet. Not yet. But he knows how to trust. He trusts his mother, as all newborns do. And that, dear friends, is how we receive God’s grace. That is true faith. It is childlike.
If you want to see how logic and reason do affect faith, we can look no further than to St. Thomas. For our sake, Scripture records Thomas’s struggles. His faith is weak, because his reason is taxed. It is simply outside of our normal experience to deal with someone who has risen from the dead. And so, with reason in the way, St. Thomas stumbles in his faith. For Christ is risen! This is Good News! He heard the report directly from the other apostles, who gave their word. But Thomas didn’t believe the word of the apostles. He had heard the word of the Marys who had come from the tomb. But in fairness, all the disciples at first did not believe them. Finally, Thomas had heard the Lord Himself say repeatedly that He would die on a cross and rise again. But Thomas would not believe the Word of Jesus either. So much for faith and reason.
Instead, in the face of the Good News, that first Easter Sunday evening, Thomas boldly declared: “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.” Thomas would not trust the Word, but wanted to see and touch. And God, in His mercy, gave Thomas something tangible to join the Word to. Jesus appeared visibly in His flesh the very next Sunday, saying, “Peace be with you.” And going to Thomas, He said, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” And seeing Jesus, and touching His flesh, Thomas believed: “My Lord and my God!”
And while we don’t see the Lord the way He appeared to Thomas, the Lord is nevertheless merciful to us, giving us something tangible to join the Word to.
In the first place, God joined His Word – and even His sacred Triune name – to the water that drowned Timothy’s old Adam, crucifying him with Christ, and promising to raise Timothy “in a resurrection like His.” You saw it, dear friends. You saw the water applied to Timothy. You heard the splash. You heard the words spoken. Timothy also saw, heard, and felt his baptism. He will remember it by the witness of his family. He will make the sign of the cross in remembrance. We made a disciple of Timothy today, just as the risen Lord was soon to command Thomas and all of the apostles to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them…”
And Timothy’s reason is no impediment to his faith, the way that it was for Thomas. For as often as not, our fallen reason gets in the way. This is why our Lord said that we must receive the kingdom “as little children.”
Another example of the mystery of faith is in our Old Testament passage from Ezekiel, in which the prophet sees a field of bones. “Can these bones live?” asks God. God commands Ezekiel to preach to the bones, and the bones come alive. They rise by the Word. Ezekiel sees it. He hears it. And certainly, the bones did nothing to be given new life. It was a free gift.
“And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live.” The Word has just done this to Timothy, raising the bones of his old Adam and breathing the new life of the Spirit into him. And he now bears the promise, in his spirit and in his flesh, of “the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”
Dear Ben and Anna, dear Colin and Paige – and the rest of you dear Hart family members – there aren’t any instructions that I can give you regarding the raising of Timothy in the Christian faith that you don’t already know. This is becoming a delightful habit, this baptizing of Hart children. And it is terrible to the devil. The seed of faith has been planted in Timothy, and you will nurture his faith, until, God willing, it yields a hundredfold. You know the power of the Word, the blessed mercy of the sacraments, and the efficacy of prayer. Your love will draw Timothy ever closer to his Savior, to whom we all look, and confess with St. Thomas: “My Lord and my God.”
And we join St. John the Evangelist in confessing, in his first epistle, that “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” Timothy has been born after months of waiting, and he has now been “born of God” in answer to our fervent prayers. Timothy “overcomes the world” and shares in “our faith.” For as John confesses, so do we: “This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.”
The water and blood that flowed from our Savior’s side at the cross, points us to this saving baptismal water and to His salutary sacramental body and blood, also given to us. For Jesus does not leave us in doubt, but joins his Word to visible and tangible elements, and presents them to us, bearing His promise, giving us faith and eternal life as a free gift.
So no matter what scoffers and the devil have to say about it, we believe the Word of God. We confess with St. Peter, who points us to the salvation of Noah and his family, safe in the ark, being saved from sin, and from the world’s corruption, by means of water, in saying, “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you.”
Our sinful flesh, our Old Adam, and our Old Thomas, finds this offer too good to be true. Our sinful self wants to take credit for making some kind of rational decision that we can pat ourselves on the back for. But our New Man, our New Timothy, receives this gift, childlike, in faith, without earning it or reasoning our way into it. And our New Timothy does not doubt. The regenerated man does not disbelieve, but believes. He confesses: “My Lord and my God!” So let the world scoff and the demons howl. There’s more where that came from! Timothy has been redeemed. His dry bones will live. And we rejoice in our risen Savior. For Timothy Michael Hart was baptized. He became a believer in our Lord Jesus Christ unto salvation. And in his newly-gifted faith, he joins us in joyfully and defiantly confessing:
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Amen
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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