Rev. Charles Lehmann + Quasimodo Geniti + John 20:19-31
In the Name of + Jesus. Amen.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
Alleluia!
When our Lord breathed His last on the cross, He bowed His head and handed
over His Spirit. It wasn't just that the Lord's soul left His body. The Lord
on whom the Spirit descended and remained on the day of His baptism gave that
same Spirit over to you. He breathed His last and gave the gift of the Holy
Spirit to Mary, John, and to the whole church.
The last word of our Lord on the cross in John's Gospel is, “It is
finished.” This is one of the most beautiful words in all of Scripture. The
Lord proclaims that His work of salvation is complete, and then He hands His
Spirit over to the church. The Lord keeps His promises, and on the cross we
see that there is nothing that can prevent Him from doing so. Just before
Jesus bows His head and gives you His Spirit, He utters words of love. “It is
finished. I have done all that is necessary for your salvation. You are
forgiven. You are free from the slavery of sin forever.”
Now fast-forward from the afternoon of Good Friday to the evening of the
first Easter. The disciples are terrified. The Pharisees and chief priests
had talked big for years, but now they'd finally done it. They had managed to
arrest Jesus, try Him, flog Him, and crucify Him. The disciples are afraid
that they'll be next. They don't want to receive the forty lashes less one.
They don't want to be speared through, burned, or crucified. They don't want
to die. So they're in hiding. Jesus died, and so what hope can they possibly
have?
By Sunday night, the disciples had all gathered behind locked doors. Even
though they'd heard from Mary Magdalene and the Emmaus disciples that Jesus was
risen, they still had their doubts, and they were still very much afraid. But
in the midst of their fear, on the very first Easter night, in the room where
they'd locked themselves, Jesus appeared to His disciples.
Jesus hadn't been invited. The disciples weren't expecting Him to walk
through the wall and crash their pity party. Though at least two of them have
seen the Resurrected Jesus face to face and two have been inside the empty
tomb, the disciples are still filled with fear, confusion, and doubt. They
don't know what to think. Their fear is so extreme that when Jesus appears to
them, Luke tells us that the disciples thought that they'd seen a ghost.
What Jesus says to the disciples when He first appears does not vary
between John and Luke. In each case the Lord's Words are, “Peace be with you.”
In John's Gospel the Lord goes from declaring that all things that are
necessary for salvation have been accomplished to speaking peace to a room full
of His terrified disciples.
This is an amazing scene on many levels. What does the Lord do? He
comforts His disciples. He does not judge them for their doubts or their
unbelief. He does not drive them further into despair. He does not say to
them, “I told you that I would rise, why didn't you believe me?” He does not
come into the locked room on Easter night with the judgment that the disciples
and all people deserve.
It would make much more sense to us if the scene was what John writes about
in the book of Revelation. “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every
eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will
wail on account of him.” The Lord's coming on Easter night is not like His
coming will be at the end of the age.
If the true God was Zeus or Odin or Mars, then the resurrection would have
been the end of all divine mercy and pardon. These false gods would have come
and leveled Jerusalem and Rome. They would have killed all who were
responsible for their death. They would have tortured the followers who
abandoned them at the time of their arrest. The appearance in the locked room
would have been filled with blood and death.
But the true God is not like the gods of our imaginations. He is filled
with love and mercy. He comes and forgives the sins of those who had abandoned
Him. He comes to them in the midst of their despair and calms their fears. He
forgives their sins and gives them His divine favor and peace.
When we are faced with such love and such mercy, we can only wonder at it.
The one whom our sins sent to the cross rises from the grave in order to give
the same love and mercy that He won for us in His death.
Easter is filled only with mercy because all of God's wrath has already
been poured out on Jesus in His death on the cross. The Lord comes into the
midst of the disciples with peace, but He doesn't stop there. The gift of
divine peace and forgiveness is not just for the disciples. The ten who are
gathered are the first pastors of the Christian Church. The Lord appoints
these ten on Easter night to give forgiveness to all the penitent.
When the Lord says, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven
them” he is making a sure and certain promise to you. When I say, “in the
stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins
in the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit,” I am
speaking these words at the Lord's command. I am forgiving your sins because
that is what the Lord has sent me here to do. He has given me to you as a
gift. But I am only a gift worth receiving if I'm speaking the Lord's Words.
The Lord's Words to you are the same words that the Lord spoke to the ten on
Easter night. “Peace be with you.” And as the Father sent Christ to the
disciples, so also has Christ sent me to you.
But the gift doesn't even stop there. The disciples also represent the
whole church, and so the forgiving of sins belongs also to the church. Paul
and James both tell us that we are to forgive one another's sins. If you sin
against your brother or sister in Christ and ask them to forgive you, the
forgiveness they speak is also the Lord's forgiveness. In a few minutes we
will pray the Lord's Prayer. We will say, “Forgive us our trespasses as we
forgive those who trespass against us.” It is a great gift to be the Lord's
instrument. And you are never more an instrument of God than when you speak to
your brother or sister in Christ the forgiveness He won for you on the cross.
This is always the way with the Lord's gifts. They don't stop. The pastor
who is forgiven by Christ, gives that forgiveness anew to his congregation.
The Christian who is forgiven by Christ, gives that same forgiveness to His
brother or sister. The Lord's love and the Lord's gifts are infinite. They do
not become less as they are given. There is not a limited supply that we need
to worry about running out of. Forgiveness keeps on going, and the Energizer
bunny could never keep up with the Lord.
But confessing sins can be scary. Some sins are secrets. These sins are
known only to you. Sometimes you might be afraid to confess to the one against
whom you sinned. But whatever shame your sin causes you or however it might
make you afraid, you need never fear to confess your sins to your pastor. What
you confess to me is confessed to God. And the Lord makes a wonderful promise
about the sins He forgives. They are forgotten. They are forgiven and erased
from His memory forever. And so also it is with me. If you confess a sin to
me, my ears are a grave. The sin is gone, and I will never speak of it. The
Lord's forgiveness is absolute, and so I refuse to remember what even the Lord
Himself has forgotten.
David writes, “If you, O Lord, counted iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared.” Just as the
Lord does not count iniquities, neither do I. The Lord who comes into the
midst of His disciples and speaks peace to them is the one who has already
borne all of the Lord's wrath against their sin and yours.
And so, let not your sins give you cause for fear. Jesus has died on the
cross to forgive them. Let not the Lord's presence among you today scare you.
He has come with His Father's peace and joy. Your sins have no grasp on you,
for you are baptized into Christ. Jesus came into the midst of His disciples
even after they abandoned Him. Jesus forgave their sins. He showed them love
and mercy even though He could have shown wrath.
That is the way with Jesus, and by His mercy, that is also the way with us.
You are forgiven. You are free. Alleluia!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
Alleluia!
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and
minds in faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Rev. Charles R. Lehmann
Pastor, Saint John's Lutheran Church, Accident, MD
http://www.stjohncove.org
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