Grace to you from God our father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
The text for this meditation is written in the 20thChapter 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 maybelieve that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believingyou may have life in his name.
Well, it is annual “Pick on Thomas Day” in the church. 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.” Thomas believed and they all lived happily ever after … well, not quite.
The scepticism of ALLthe 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 disciples were making these stories up out of their own imaginations, we would expect the story to go something like this:
We would expect to hear about the loyal disciples who immediately understood Jesus when He told them about His upcoming death and resurrection. We would expect these same disciples to demonstrate intense loyalty to Jesus as they attended to Him during the false trial, the suffering, and the crucifixion. Then we would expect them to remove the body from the cross with the utmost of dignity and respect as they carefully prepared to wait for the resurrection. We would expect them to pray psalms and sing hymns as they held vigil until Jesus returned to life. Then they would have rejoiced and worshipped Jesus as they learned at His feet until He ascended into heaven. That is the kind of story you would expect if the disciples were making this story up from their own imaginations.
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 foxes 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”. Of mankind’s own doing in Eden’s paradise we were condemned, but the Father of all mercy and grace 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 to this very day and beyond.
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 realise how bizarre this is? 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 drew a total blank every time Jesus told them He was going to suffer, die, and rise from the dead. I mean: Wow; as disciples of Jesus, they are not really at the top of the class!
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 a group of pessimists 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 in the water and Word at our Holy Baptism. When we stand in God’s presence and earnestly confess our sins and we hear the words of the absolution pronounced,we are in fact hearing the words of Jesus as written in Matt 9:2 “Take heart, your sins are forgiven”. In all of these ways and more, Jesus still comes to us and says, “Peace be with you.” Amen
The peace and love of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
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