John 20;19 31 easter 2 cws b benson vail

John 20:19-31

Easter 2—CWS B

Pastor Ron Koehler

Grace-Benson/Vail, AZ

April 8, 2018

19

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. 21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” 24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” 26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though 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; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” 28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” 30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe x that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

In the name of our Risen and Victorious Lord—the one who has brought us peace with God—dear friends,

I spent some time this week trying to figure Thomas out. We know that he loved Jesus, but he’s kind of a gloomy-sounding guy. When Jesus told his followers that he was going up to Jerusalem to raise Lazarus from the dead, Thomas said “Let us also go, that we may die with him (John 11:16).” Was he being brave or pessimistic—I don’t know! In the Upper Room on the night before Jesus died, the Savior told the Twelve that he was going to prepare a place for them and that they knew the way. Thomas was the one who said “we don’t know the way… (John 14:5).” And then there is this Easter evening story before us today where he’s doubting Jesus’ resurrection. In some ways, he’s kind of unimpressive. In other ways, his love is to be admired. These are the only things from Thomas’ mouth that we hear in the entire Bible. From these brief comments at important times, he seems like a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy. But I can’t say that I’ve been able to figure him out. I’m left with questions. I suppose the biggest question is: As a disciple, did he have peace knowing Jesus? In the end, we know he did. Thomas found out that Jesus gives true peace, and as we look into the locked room where the disciples are holed up on Easter evening, we find that… JESUS GIVES US TRUE PEACE as he… 1. DRIVES OUT FEAR (w/his presence) (19-20) 2. BRINGS THE HOLY SPIRIT (21-23) 3. DISPELS DOUBT (about him, our sins, etc.) (24-29) 4. SPEAKS TO US THROUGH HIS WRITTEN WORD (30-31) 1. DRIVES OUT FEAR (w/his presence) (19-20) Everyone knows what it is to be afraid. Maybe you remember being afraid on your first day riding the school bus or the first day of high school. Perhaps a serious illness came to you or a loved one and it caused fear. Or what about the death of someone close to us? Sometimes even fun things like roller-coasters can make us afraid. There are times when people don’t like us too much—a bully on the playground, a co-worker we just don’t get along with, or maybe even a family member who is abusive. Although there are times we are afraid for no good reason, there are lots of times when people have given us reason to fear.

The disciples were so afraid of the people who put Jesus to death a few days earlier that they had hidden themselves away at some house. They were sure that they were next in line to be run through a mockery of a trial and then put to death for being Jesus’ disciples. Fear had caused them to forget their bold promise to die for Jesus if necessary. Their hearts were nervous and scared as they huddled in that locked room hoping no one would find them. But someone did find them. On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” There are differences of opinion out there on just how much the disciples knew and understood and believed about Jesus’ rising from the dead by Easter evening. What I see in Scripture is not impressive: the disciples did not believe the women who were at the empty tomb—including Mary, who saw the risen Lord; they didn’t believe the Emmaus disciples who walked and talked with the risen Savior; they were locked away in fear instead of showing a fearlessness that would have been there, if they had believed that Jesus had defeated death; in another account of these events, we’re told that they thought Jesus was a ghost appearing in that room; and Jesus called them troubled doubters as he came to them, even eating something in order to prove that he had physically risen from the grave! These were troubled men with anxious and fearful hearts. But listen to what Jesus tells them: Eirhnh umin, “Peace be with you!” Although Eirhnh umin was a common greeting, it meant something very UNCOMMON when spoken by the risen Lord! “Peace be with you!” from Jesus, who defeated sin and the devil and death is NOT just a greeting, it is a spiritual truth that comforts us! You can see that in the reaction of those cowardly followers. After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. They forgot their fears and were filled with joy! JESUS GAVE THEM TRUE PEACE when he appeared physically with them. He was no longer dead! He proved himself to be true God! 2. BRINGS THE HOLY SPIRIT (21-23) Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” Notice how Jesus’ disciples (then and now) are intimately connected with the Triune God: Just like the Father sent the Son, the Son is sending us and he does so by giving us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives us faith to trust in Christ and reassures us in all circumstances that we are God’s children! As those disciples

went out to share the great news of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection and salvation by faith in him, and as they carried out the work of the Law and Gospel, they did so with power from the Holy Spirit. What PEACE filled their hearts as they did that! We have that same peace! The gift of the Spirit and the commissioning to go out and proclaim forgiveness to the repentant sinner and announce judgment on those who reject Jesus is given to us every bit as much as it was given to those first disciples. We call that important work the Ministry of the Keys, because as we work with the Law and the Gospel, it is like having a “key” that opens heaven for the believer and locks the person out of heaven who does not look to Jesus for forgiveness and eternal life. You may remember what Martin Luther wrote in the Catechism about the “Keys”: The use of the keys is that special power and right which Christ gave to his church on earth: to forgive the sins of penitent sinners but to refuse forgiveness to the impenitent as long as they do not repent. Where is this written? The holy evangelist John writes in chapter 20, “Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’” Christians ARE the church and we all have this responsibility to one another. We are to take it so seriously that we neither ignore it nor go beyond what our God does. We cannot announce forgiveness to the person who is not repentant over their sin. And we cannot withhold the announcement of forgiveness from someone who truly repents. The Holy Spirit has come to us and called us to faithfully carry out this Ministry of the Keys according to God’s will and Word. Although all Christians do this work, we call pastors to do this publicly. That’s why in worship—after the congregation makes confession of their sins—the pastor speaks words like: God, our heavenly Father, has been merciful to us and has given his only Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Therefore, as a called servant of Christ and by his authority, I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. WHAT PEACE JESUS BRINGS US by giving us the Holy Spirit who lives in us and guides us as we carry out his work as individual believers and as called servants in our congregation! No matter how any individual situation turns out with a brother or sister in Christ, we can have peace knowing that we simply speak what Christ would speak. It is not about us; it is about Christ’s Law and Gospel. Jesus brings the Holy Spirit so we can do that work.

3. DISPELS DOUBT (about him, our sins, etc.)

(24-29)

I think it’s a little tough to be too hard on Thomas. He gets the worst reputation for doubting everyone’s word that Jesus was alive, but really, the rest of them did the same thing when the women and the Emmaus disciples told them! They didn’t fully believe until Jesus stood there and ate some food right in front of them! And since Scripture doesn’t tell us, I don’t want to be guilty of too much speculation, but Thomas was out running around while all the rest were holed up on Easter evening. We don’t know where he was or what he was up to but he wasn’t locked up there! Now, he could have been hiding somewhere else or out in the wide-open—we don’t know. But I’m not sure his reputation should be so much worse than the rest. At any rate, Thomas had doubts about Jesus’ resurrection. Like all of us, his sinful mind urged him to be logical, reasonable. He wanted proof. He wanted to see Jesus with his own eyes and feel the marks of his crucifixion. Sinful people like those disciples…like Thomas…like us…want to have things proven to us. Though God calls us to it, simple faith is tough to have. For whatever reason, Jesus indulged Thomas. The next time all the disciples were together Jesus miraculously appeared again inside a locked room. Again he said Eirhnh umin, “Peace be with you!” And then he faced Thomas’ doubt head-on: “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” JESUS GAVE THOMAS TRUE PEACE as he DISPELLED HIS DOUBT. Immediately “doubting Thomas” became “believing Thomas”: “My Lord and my God!” he said. The Savior received his proclamation of praise, but mentioned to him: “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” That’s you and me, isn’t it? We are among those who have not seen Jesus, but have believed! And JESUS GIVES US TRUE PEACE as he DISPELS OUR DOUBT too! And we are “doubting Helens” and “doubting Johns” and “doubting Daniels and Davids and Debbies” aren’t we? If Jesus did not give us peaceful hearts, those hints of doubt that plague us would become full-blown. Because of our sin, we would eventually take a different stance on the truth of the Bible and whether there really is a God and whether or not a guy named Jesus really was the Savior whose death fully pays for all people’s sins. You’d like to think that you’d never go that far, but we would! That’s what sin does; that’s the devil’s work; that’s where the world’s influence takes a person. But thanks be to God! Jesus is risen from the grave and his resurrection proves to weak-minded sinners like us that he is Lord and Savior. By his resurrection and his appearing in our hearts, JESUS GIVES US TRUE PEACE as he DISPELS OUR DOUBTS!

4. SPEAKS TO US THROUGH HIS WRITTEN WORD

(30-31)

JESUS also GIVES US TRUE PEACE as he SPEAKS TO US THROUGH HIS WRITTEN WORD. That’s where we get to “see” him. That’s where our fears are driven away. That’s where the Holy Spirit does his work on our hearts. That’s where our doubts are dispelled. That’s why there is no replacement in your life for the reading and hearing of Scripture. The only way to have that true peace of heart and mind is to let JESUS SPEAK TO US THROUGH HIS WRITTEN WORD. As John wrote his gospel by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he and God had a purpose in mind and he tells us right here at the end of our text: Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. You may recall that we sometimes sing those words as part of our service.. That little song formed from John’s words here reminds us why we have those Scripture readings. The whole purpose of this gospel is so that you and I—as we read it and hear it—may believe in Jesus as our Savior and have eternal life through him. Jesus spoke to the disciples and showed them that he was the Risen Savior who brought them heaven. That brought incredible peace to their hearts. JESUS SPEAKS TO US THROUGH HIS WRITTEN WORD and shows himself to us so that we can know that he is our Risen Savior who brings us heaven. And that, dear friends, is the only thing that can give us TRUE PEACE. Amen. Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.