"My Lord and My God!" Second Sunday of Easter Quasimodo Geniti April 27, 2014 John 20:19–31
When one confesses his sins he then confesses his faith. When we stand before God we become acutely aware that we cannot stand before Him. We are sinners and He is holy. We confess our sin. Yet the holy God is the gracious God. God doesn’t merely allow us into His presence but Himself comes to us in mercy and grace. We see that He is our Lord and our God. The Gospel reading today says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Thomas saw and believed. The other disciples saw and believed. God was standing before them and they confessed, “My Lord and my God.” They were blessed. They confessed their faith. But we haven’t seen. We haven’t stood before God in the flesh. We are acutely aware, though, of our sinfulness. We confess our sin. We become aware that the God we confess to is the God who forgives us and shines His face upon us. We confess our faith. He is our Lord and our God. Thomas, you have seen and have believed, blessed are those who haven’t seen and yet believe. Would you rather be as Thomas and stand before your Lord and your God in the flesh, or as you are and believe in your Lord and God even though you haven’t seen Him? Do you wish you could have been alive 2000 years ago and see Jesus face to face? Are you perfectly content as you are, believing even though you haven’t seen? Like it or not, you are in the second category. How it is that we are blessed as Jesus said, “Blessed are those haven’t seen and yet believed.” And John says, “these things are written that you may believe.” The answer is very specific. It is so specific that there is no other answer. It is different from every other religion and different from what we Christians often gravitate towards. Every other religion has some god or other way of achieving salvation. But even with us Christians we so often turn to things that are not what God has directed us to. We look to our feelings or we look to programs that offer success or we look for ways that provide comfort or satisfaction that we are saved. All of this is in direct contrast to the one thing that the Bible points us to. It is Jesus Christ. When we confess our God as our Lord and God it is because of Christ. God is not a generic idea of a supreme being. He is the God who has made Himself known in the person of Jesus. God stood before Thomas and Thomas exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” Many times Jesus was before others in their need and their faith was not directed toward a generic idea of a god but toward the specific person of Jesus who was in their presence. All other religions leave it up to you to somehow come into the presence of God. The true God comes to you in His Son. The problem with us is that we think that since God’s answer is so specific that it also has to be limited to the person of Jesus as He walked and talked on the earth for thirty-some years. But Jesus is not just a man who walked around on the earth for thirty years. He is the very Word of God. When God speaks He is not just speaking words, He is speaking the Word that is His Son. Jesus was present at creation when God spoke, “Let there be light” and when He spoke into creation all other parts of His creation. The stunning sweep of creation fits well with our idea of God. He is above all and we cannot fathom Him. But the God who spoke creation into existence is the God who comes to individuals He has created. And He does so in His Son. The Lord of the universe came individually to Thomas to invite him to touch His hands and place his fingers into His side. This very same God and Lord appeared to a woman who was caught in a terrible trap. Hagar was the servant of Sarah. God had promised that Abraham and Sarah would have a son. The only problem, as Abraham and Sarah saw it, is that they were far too old to become pregnant. So Sarah had the brilliant plan that they could conceive of a child through Abraham and Hagar. When Hagar got pregnant Sarah became jealous and began treating Hagar harshly. Hagar couldn’t take it anymore so she ran away. The only problem with this is that she had a child to care for and no way to care for him. She was alone and had nowhere to go. She was ready to die. That’s when the Angel of the Lord appeared to her. He promised her that He would take care of her and that she should go back to Sarah. This is what the Bible says next: “So she called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, ‘You are a God of seeing,’ for she said, ‘Truly here I have seen Him who looks after me.’” This was Hagar confessing her faith in her Lord. He was the very same Lord Thomas confessed his faith in. This was Jesus, the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, coming to Hagar in a pre-incarnate form. When Jacob was fleeing from his brother Esau, fearing for his life and his family’s, he was alone. That’s when a man showed up and wrestled with him. People often think of this man as an angel, especially since angels often come in a human-looking form. But that’s not what Jacob thought. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” There was the time Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace. Three men had been thrown in and yet King Nebuchadnezzar could not believe his eyes when he saw a fourth one walking around in there. Here’s what he thought of that person who had joined Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: “I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.” Then this comes next: “Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning fiery furnace; he declared, ‘Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out, and come here!’” Nebuchadnezzar knew. He knew that was God in there. There are examples in the New Testament, of course a whole bunch of them in the four Gospel accounts. There’s also Saul on the road to Damascus who is met by the risen Lord. There is John on the island of Patmos. With those in the Gospel accounts, the people are standing face to face with Jesus. With Paul, ironically, he didn’t see Jesus because he was blinded by Him for three days. With John, Jesus appeared to him in a revelation. All of this leads us to the question at hand. How is it that we are blessed, and better off, when we do not see Him and yet still believe in Him? It is this. The Lord who was spoken at creation in bringing creation about is the Lord who came to Hagar when she was all alone in the wilderness. And He is the one who came to Jacob when he was all alone and fearing for his life. He is the very same one who entered into that fiery furnace to rescue Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and to convert Nebuchadnezzar. He is the same Lord who appeared to Saul and to John. He is the one who appeared to many people while in His three year ministry, including Thomas who had refused to believe Jesus had risen from the grave. The common denominator in all of these is that God comes to people. And He does it through the Person of Jesus Christ. It is the very same with you. You do not see Him, but you are in His presence when He comes to you. He is the spoken word that is coming to you when His Gospel is proclaimed and His Absolution is pronounced. His is the death and resurrection you are joined to in your Baptism and your daily living in it. His is the body and blood you partake of in His Holy Supper. You now see as they never did. You now see that He comes to you with Himself, and all His blessings that come with Himself, and He comes to you often. He comes to you fully and freely with all His forgiveness, life, and salvation. While Hagar, and Jacob, and Saul, and Thomas, saw Him briefly in the flesh, they had to wait until heaven to see Him once again in the flesh. Now that He has ascended into heaven, He isn’t going to be appearing to you as He did with them, but He will continue to come to you often in His Gospel and His Sacraments so that you may know and believe. So that you may confess Him as your Lord and your God. Amen. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. [Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian] _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list [email protected] http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
