Grace to you and
peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
The text for this
meditation is written in the 20th Chapter of the Gospel according to
St John: Verses 19 – 31:
19 On the evening of
that day, the first day of the week, the
doors being locked where the disciples were for
fear of the Jews, Jesus came and
stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
Then the disciples were glad when
they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” 22 And when he had said
this, he breathed on them and
said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you
withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
24 Now Thomas,
one of the twelve, called the Twin, was
not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have
seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “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.”
26 Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and
Thomas was with them. Although
the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see
my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve,
but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My
Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you
have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples,
which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Poor old Thomas! Every year, we
celebrate Easter and then, the following week, we pick on Thomas. He was late to Sunday service and so he
missed Jesus. He uttered that ultimatum:
“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.” Then, the next Sunday, Jesus showed up and 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.”
One could be forgiven for thinking that Thomas was failing in his duties
as a disciple.
The fact is however that the scepticism of ALL the disciples is one of things that contributes to the
credibility of the Easter accounts in the Gospels. Before Jesus revealed Himself to the
disciples none of them believed. Luke
the Evangelist records: [Luke
24:9–11] Returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven
and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene and
Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told
these things to the apostles, 11 but these words seemed
to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. Notice that it states that the apostles … all of them … thought the witness of
the women was an idle tale. This is not
the way stories usually went at that time.
There are people who insist that the account of the resurrection is made
up, but the entire style of the account of the resurrection does not match the
style of other religious literature of the time. If the resurrection story was a figment of
the disciples’ imagination, we could surely expect a story of self-loyalty and
self-sacrifice as they attended to Jesus and offered up prayers from the cross
to the tomb until they rejoiced when He rose in glory
What actually happened was that Jesus told the disciples that He would
suffer, die, and rise from the dead and the disciples didn’t get it. Instead they quarrelled over who among them
was the greatest. When it finally became
clear that Jesus was going to allow himself to be arrested and taken in for
trial, the disciples ran like rabbits from a hound. When witnesses began telling the disciples
that Jesus had risen from the dead, the disciples thought that the witnesses
were hallucinating or something. The
disciples didn’t just doubt, they flat-out rejected the idea that Jesus rose
from the dead. The accounts pretty much
portray the disciples as unbelieving cowards.
That was not the way to start a new religion in that day and age.
The truth of the matter is that while Jesus lay in the tomb, the
disciples were unbelievers. They were
pagans. They were lost in unbelief and sin. They weren’t just doubting; They were
unbelieving.
Unbelief is the way that all people begin this life. The rite of baptism says: The Word of God … teaches that we are all
conceived and born sinful and are under the power of the devil until Christ
claims us as His own. We would be lost
forever unless delivered from sin, death, and everlasting condemnation. The psalmist tells us: [Psalm 51:5] Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in
sin did my mother conceive me. But
the Father of all mercy and grace has sent His Son Jesus Christ, who atoned for
the sin of the whole world that whoever believes in Him should not perish but
have eternal life.
This is the reason it is so important to hear the words of Jesus in
today’s Gospel. Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” Here are the disciples hiding behind locked
doors … afraid … disheartened … unbelieving.
Never the less, Jesus came to them with peace. He was gentle.
He was patient. He showed them his hands and his side. He gently and carefully restored their faith
in Him. Now they knew. Not only did Jesus die on the cross, but He
also rose from the dead. He encouraged
the disciples to examine His wounds and verify that it really was Him.
We hear Jesus give peace three times in today’s Gospel. That is Jesus’ main mission, earning and
giving peace. Long ago, the enemy
seduced humanity into hostility toward God.
We don’t have peace with Him. We
are His enemies. But Jesus Christ, the
Son of God entered into our humanity and lived a perfect life under the
law. He willingly allowed His enemies to
nail Him to a cross. While He hung on
that cross, He endured the punishment that we, the enemies of God,
deserved. Then He died and rose from the
dead. In this way, He earned forgiveness
for all people. He earned peace with God
and He offered that peace to the disciples and He still offers that peace to
us.
In fact, it is in the very Gospel that we just read that we hear how
Jesus transmits His peace to us. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with
you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” This is nothing other than Jesus installing
these men as apostles. The very word
apostle comes from a Greek word that means to
send. Jesus said that He is God the
Father’s apostle, the one sent from the Father.
Now He is commissioning these disciples to be His apostles, ones who are
sent directly by Him. These apostles
will take the very peace that Jesus has given to them and proclaim it to the
world.
Do you see the irony in this?
These are the men who often quarrelled about who is the greatest among
them. These are the men who abandoned
Jesus at His greatest need. These are
the men who thought the stories of the resurrection were idle tales. These are the men who stared vaguely every
time Jesus told them He was going to suffer, die, and rise from the dead. These
are not people chosen for their great faith and insight; in fact in the faith
department, they are pretty ordinary – much like us.
Never the less, they are the one whom Jesus sent. They are the ones the Apostle Paul wrote
about to the church in Ephesus: [Ephesians 2:19–20]
You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the
saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on
the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the
cornerstone. The Apostle Paul states
that these men are the foundation of the household of God. Paul is talking about men who were cowardly
unbelievers until Jesus showed Himself to them.
Now Jesus is sending them. Now
they are Jesus’ Apostles.
There is only one way that an unskilled group like this can carry out
the mission of Jesus. God has to do the
work. It has to be God working through
these men that makes them the sent ones.
They are like God’s people of old who often came to the battle ready to
fight only to discover that God had already won the battle. They thought they were coming as soldiers,
but they only ended up being witnesses to the victory God won for them.
Jesus gave them a special authority.
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.” He gave
these men the authority to administer the very forgiveness of sins that Jesus
earned on the cross … the very forgiveness of sins that gives us peace with
God.
We read about the work God did through these apostles in the first
reading from Acts 5: When they had called in the apostles, they
beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41 Then they left the
presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer
dishonour for the name. 42 And
every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching
and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.
On Easter morning, they were cowardly unbelievers. Later, they rejoiced at the suffering they
received in the name of Jesus. Only God
can work a change like that.
The apostles have long since died, but they still teach us for we have
their teachings in written form in the New Testament. Their writings still tell us that Jesus saved
us from sin with His perfect life and His sacrificial death. Their writings still tell us that we have
God’s promise of resurrection because Jesus did not remain in the tomb, but
rose to immortal life and ascended into heaven.
Their writings continue the work that Jesus gave to them when He called
them to be His sent ones, His apostles.
The apostles have died, but the office of the holy ministry
continues. Jesus still sends His men to
proclaim His peace to the world. The
Holy Spirit worked through the Apostles to establish congregations of believers
in many places. As the Holy Spirit
established these congregations, He also established the Office of the Holy
Ministry as the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to write: [Ephesians 4:11–12] [Christ] gave
the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to
equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.
Once again, today’s Gospel demonstrates the overwhelming generosity of
God’s mercy. Jesus showed Himself to a
group of unbelieving cowards. He gave
God’s peace to them. He commissioned
them to be His Apostles … His sent ones.
He breathed the Holy Spirit into them.
He gave them the authority to administer the very forgiveness that He
earned for them and all people on the cross.
These men deserved none of this, but they received it all by God’s grace
as a gift.
God continues to work in grace and mercy today. At birth, every one of us is a selfish, enemy
of God. Never the less, the Father of
all mercy and grace has sent His Son Jesus Christ, who atoned for the sin of
the whole world that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal
life. Jesus gives His peace to us. The Holy Spirit still works in us by the
power of the very Word that Jesus sent His apostles to proclaim. The forgiveness of sins is still proclaimed from
Christian sanctuaries across the world.
In all of these ways and more, Jesus still comes to us and says, “Peace be with you.” Amen
The love and peace
of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your
hearts and minds I Christ Jesus. Amen
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