The Second Sunday of Easter – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: St. John 20:19-31
In Christ Jesus, who still bears the marks of His love for the entire human race (Rev. 5:6), scars that we will see one day with our own eyes, dear fellow redeemed:
Everybody here has scars, permanent marks from incidents in the past. What do you think of those scars? Do they bother you because they stand out from the rest of your skin, or because they remind you of difficult times like surgery, or times that you behaved foolishly and injured yourself? Or are you thankful for the reminder that God saw you through those difficulties and still cares for you? Whether or not we like our scars, they all have meaning. Each one takes us back to a particular point in time, a particular experience, that we would not remember without the scars.
Today’s reading highlights the most significant, most beautiful scars that have ever been etched in human skin. These are the scars of Jesus Christ. The wounds He received during Holy Week were probably too many to count. How many stripes were cut into His back from the flogging He received? How many thorns pierced His skull? How often was His skin broken from the beating He received?
Having sustained these wounds starting Thursday evening and then being nailed to the cross on Friday, there is no way, humanly speaking, that His wounds would have healed and become scars by Easter Sunday. But Jesus did not need time to recover from His wounds. With His work complete, He entered His state of exaltation. This means that starting with His triumphant descent into hell, He always and fully uses His divine power. He feels no weakness or pain; He is not susceptible to injury anymore. If He chose, He could make every mark of His suffering and death vanish. Instead, He chose to retain at least five of them: the marks in His hands, His feet (Luk. 24:39), and His side.
These are what He showed to His disciples when He appeared to them in the tightly closed room on Easter Sunday evening. But first, He said something to them, something short but powerful: “Peace be with you.” Those were stunning first words! If we had just suffered for the sins of others and gone through the torments of hell while our friends deserted us, our first words to them might likely be: “How could you do this to me?” Or, “Where were you?” Or, “I thought you said you would never deny me!” Or, “Why didn’t you believe me?”
Jesus said, “Peace be with you,” and immediately showed them His hands and His side. He showed these scars to prove that, yes, He was their Lord who died on the cross on Friday. And now He was alive again. Death could not defeat Him. He had risen, just as He said He would. His message and the marks meshed beautifully with each other. The scars on His hands, feet, and side showed how peace was secured.
Colossians 1:20 says that the Son of God incarnate “reconcile[d] to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” Peace between God and mankind was not possible except through Jesus’ suffering and death. A perfect sacrifice had to be offered for the sins of all people, and that perfect sacrifice was sent from heaven to earth. Jesus was “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Joh. 1:29). His mission was to reconcile us, bring us back together, make peace with God that only He could bring about.
The message of peace that He spoke to the disciples was not just for them, it was for everyone. His resurrection from the dead means that peace was made between us and God. The Father accepted His atoning sacrifice on our behalf. Washed clean by the blood of the Lamb, the Father announces our eternal verdict: “Not guilty!” The empty tomb on Easter morning means that all your sins—every single one—are forgiven.
That is also true of the sins of your neighbor. The peace that Jesus declares was not just for the pretty good people, not just for the ones who would believe in Him, not just for the people we like. His death and resurrection made peace with God for all sinners of all time. His resurrection victory is everyone’s victory because He died and rose for every sinner.
This is important to remember when we are dealing with people in our life who have not been kind to us. Maybe they cheated us, lied to us, lied about us. Maybe they betrayed our trust, stole from us, caused us tremendous pain. Those sins leave marks, too, just not visible ones. They are sins that cut deep, that keep causing pain long after the deed is done.
There are different things we can do with that pain. Our natural reaction is to want to inflict pain on the one who hurt us, to seek not peace but revenge. If that is not possible, we might take out our hurt on others. Or we might drown our pain in the bottle, the drug, anything to numb the hurt we feel. Those approaches will only make the pain worse.
The better way is to hand it over to Jesus. He accepts our pain with open hands, hands that show the scars of His sacrifice. “I will bear this for you,” He says. “That’s why I came.” The prophet Isaiah tells us, “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…. [H]e was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed” (53:4,5). His wounds bring peace and healing to us. He accepted punishment for all sin, both the sins we have done and the sins that others have done to us. He paid for them all, pouring out His holy blood to wash them away.
If Jesus did not need to take revenge against His disciples who should have stood by Him or against the people who tortured and crucified Him, we don’t need to take revenge against those who have harmed us. Instead, we pray that God would put mercy in our hearts toward them, and that they would hear about and understand the peace that God wants them to have, the peace of knowing that all sin is forgiven through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus wants us to share this peace. “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mat. 5:9), He says. He gave this responsibility and privilege to every Christian when He commissioned those weak, unfaithful, frightened disciples to proclaim this glorious message. After showing them the scars that secured peace, Jesus said for the second time, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.” Then He breathed on them, His own life-giving breath, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
This is the Office of the Keys, “the special authority which Christ has given to His Church on earth: to forgive the sins of the penitent sinners, but to retain the sins of the impenitent as long as they do not repent” (Luther’s Small Catechism). This work is done publicly by the pastor on behalf of the congregation. But every Christian can announce the forgiveness of sins to those who are sorry for the wrongs they have done. We can assure them that Jesus died on the cross for their trespasses and rose again for their justification (Rom. 4:25), to declare them righteous before God, not guilty of any wrong in His sight.
For those who are not sorry for their sins, who show no remorse for the pain they have caused, it is important for us to extend our personal forgiveness, so that our hurt does not turn into anger and hatred. But as long as those who have sinned remain in their sin, they are not forgiven before God. Jesus suffered, died, and rose again for their peace, but until they acknowledge their sin, they are saying they have no need for His saving work.
This is how it was for Thomas during that long, agonizing week between Jesus’ appearances to His disciples. We often refer to him as “doubting Thomas,” but “stubborn Thomas” might be more accurate. No matter what details his friends shared with him about their interactions with Jesus, about the encouraging things He did and the peaceful things He said, Thomas would not listen to their word. He would not hear them with humility. He was going to insist that Jesus was dead, until his standard of proof was met: “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.”
This must have been a great frustration for the disciples who had seen Jesus, just as it is a great frustration to us when a brother or sister in Christ takes the stubborn route and won’t listen to the clear Word of God. But Jesus still loved Thomas, just as we are still to love those who have become stuck in sin. When Jesus appeared again to the disciples a week after His resurrection, with Thomas now present, the first words out of His mouth were once again, “Peace be with you. I have died and risen for all of you, including you, Thomas.” But He also added some words of rebuke and correction: “Do not disbelieve, but believe,” and, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
We trust in Jesus, the perfect Son of God in the flesh, even though we have not seen Him or His wounds. We believe that He endured every injustice, every torment, every wrong, so that we would have peace with God, healing from our wounds, and hope for the life to come. He willingly went to the cross to redeem us and rose in victory over sin, death, and devil.
When He comes in glory on the last day, then we will see Him with our own eyes. We will see the marks on His hands, feet, and side—those beautiful scars. They stand as an eternal reminder of God’s love for the human race that caused Him to send His Son to save us. He joyfully bears the scars of His crucifixion and death as signs of His atoning, all-sufficient sacrifice, as the marks that made for our peace.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “The Incredulity of Saint Thomas” by Caravaggio, c. 1601-1602)
The Second Sunday of Easter – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Joshua 5:13-6:6
In Christ Jesus, who waits for just the right time to give just the right blessings, dear fellow redeemed:
The Lord’s apostle Thomas had a tough week. Mary Magdalene and the other women said, “We have seen the Lord!” The two Emmaus disciples said, “We have seen the Lord!” His fellow chosen disciples said, “We have seen the Lord!” Why did Thomas seem to be the only one who hadn’t seen the Lord that Easter Sunday? Why would Jesus leave him out? He couldn’t bear the thought; they must be mistaken.
So all week long, no matter who talked to him, and no matter what evidence they offered of Jesus’ resurrection, Thomas defiantly replied, “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” (Joh. 20:25). But did he also have some doubts about his firm position? As each day passed without the Lord appearing, did he wonder, “O Lord, what are You waiting for?” Or did the passing of each day without the Lord’s appearance make him more firm in his denials?
He asked for proof, real tangible evidence. He wanted to see it, or he said he would never believe it. This showed a misunderstanding of what it means to “believe.” It is not a decision that a person makes when the evidence is convincing enough. It is not a scientific process of gathering facts until there is no possible conclusion but one. To “believe” is to trust that something is so, or that something will be, even when there is no tangible evidence or logical basis to support it.
The Israelites were operating by faith as they marched around the walls of Jericho. They trusted that the LORD would give them the victory He promised. But we could understand if their faith wavered a bit. Like Thomas who had to wait a week before Jesus revealed Himself to him, the Israelites had to wait a week before the LORD delivered Jericho into their hands.
Each day for six days, they were directed to march one time all the way around the city. The only sound to be made was seven priests blowing seven rams’ horns. The men of war were to march in silence. As each day passed with nothing happening, did those Israelites wonder within themselves, “What are You waiting for?” What if nothing happened at all? They would be the laughing-stock of all the land of Canaan if they marched around a city for a week and nothing happened. Possibly while they marched they could hear the inhabitants of Jericho yelling down at them, taunting them, ridiculing them.
But as strange as it seemed to do what God said, they held onto His promise. They followed the LORD’s instructions. For six days, they marched around once, and on the seventh day, they marched around the city seven times in the same manner as before. Then the seven priests blew their trumpets. On their cue, the men of war sent up a great shout, and the walls of Jericho dropped straight down just like a skyscraper that is imploded.
The Israelites’ seven-day wait was rewarded with a complete victory over the city and its inhabitants. Their faith in the LORD’s promise was confirmed. The wait was definitely worth it. Because the LORD made them wait and made the walls of Jericho fall without anything touching them, the Israelites saw more clearly that the victory was the LORD’s.
The “sevens” in the account emphasize this. The number seven in the Bible is closely tied to God, so it represents His holiness or perfection. He directed seven priests to march for seven days carrying seven horns, with seven trips around the city on the seventh day. This was the work of the holy LORD; this was His doing out of love for His people.
The same holy LORD still works on your behalf, to give you blessings. But when you have to do something you don’t want to do, or when relief is taking longer than you want, it is easy to ask Him, “What are You waiting for?” You may have asked that when you were sick and didn’t seem to be getting better. You may have asked that when you were being mistreated by a classmate or co-worker or member of the community. You may have asked that when a close relationship was strained, when great troubles loomed in your future, when the questions kept piling up but no answers—“What Are You Waiting For?”
It is natural to ask this. We even have examples of wording like this in the Psalms of lament. But the psalmists don’t stop with that question. They go on to express their confidence that the LORD will act, that He will deliver them at the right time. We need to remember who is calling the shots, who has the Master plan. This is brought home to us by the first part of today’s reading, when Joshua comes face to face with a mysterious Man of war. Joshua asked Him, “Are You for us, or for our adversaries?” It’s a simple choice. We think the answer will be “I am for you.” But instead the Man replied, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come.”
God is not interested in taking the side of sinners, as though He is just another weapon in our arsenal. He wants us to take His side, to put our trust in Him. This is instructive for when we wonder if we should pray for our favorite sports team, as though God is a fan like we are, or that our team is more righteous than another. God is above all this. He doesn’t want us to be so focused on sides in this life. He wants us to stay focused on His Word.
This is the crucial step when we ask Him, “What are You waiting for?” Instead of just staring up in the sky and waiting for something to happen, the LORD wants us to hear His holy Word. He wants us to review His promises, take them to heart, understand anew His love for us. He wants us to believe that He sent His only-begotten Son to take on flesh for us. He wants us to believe that Jesus satisfied the requirements of God’s holy Law in our place and died to make satisfaction for all our sin. He wants us to believe that Jesus rose on the third day in victory over death just as He said He would.
This was Thomas’ failing. He might have thought that His friends were playing a cruel trick on him, but he should not have rejected Jesus’ clear word. Before His death, Jesus told all twelve of the disciples, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day” (Mat. 20:18-19). Thomas heard those words, but like his fellow disciples, he did not believe them.
They did not believe until they saw Jesus, until they had tangible proof. And Jesus said to them, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (Joh. 20:29). Sometimes Christians will ask God for some special sign of His love, some evidence that will show them He is really present, that He really cares. And the LORD says to us, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
He calls you to trust His love even when it seems like He is angry with you, to rely on Him even when there appears to be no end to your troubles, to follow His Word even when you can’t see a “light at the end of the tunnel.” Because He is only waiting for the right time. He will not forget about you. Everything He does is for your good.
Day seven was the right time for the walls of Jericho to come crashing down just as the LORD promised they would. Seven days was the right time to hide Himself from Thomas, so Thomas would learn to trust Jesus’ Word and not his own reason. And however long you must wait for relief or help or deliverance is the right amount of time. Whatever you go through, Jesus is with you. Did you notice how He repeated Thomas’ words showing that He had seen all and heard all? Thomas didn’t know it, but Jesus was with Him the whole time.
And so He is with you always, even to the end of your life, even to the end of the age (Mat. 28:20). He is with you “where two or three are gathered in [His] name” (Mat. 18:20). He is with you when He brings forgiveness right to your heart in the absolution. He is with you when you come forward to His holy table. These are the means of His grace by which He makes the walls of your sin and doubt come crashing down. This is where He gives you strength for today and for tomorrow. This is where He turns your desire for proof of His love into the assurance that He loves you with a perfect love.
This is where He changes your impatient, “What are You waiting for?” into a faithful and eager waiting for His grace. We join the psalmist in this faithful waiting and say, “I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, And in His word I do hope. My soul waits for the Lord More than those who watch for the morning—Yes, more than those who watch for the morning. O Israel, hope in the LORD; For with the LORD there is mercy, And with Him is abundant redemption” (Psa. 130:5-7, NKJV).
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(woodcut from “Doubting Thomas” by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)
The Second Sunday of Easter – Vicar Lehne sermon
Text: St. John 20:19-31
In Christ Jesus, who dispels our every doubt, dear fellow redeemed:
How could Thomas be so stubborn? The other disciples saw Jesus with their own eyes. They saw the mark of the nails on his hands and the hole in his side from the spear. Why did Thomas refuse to believe his fellow disciples “[u]nless [he saw] in [Jesus’] hands the mark of the nails, and [placed his] finger into the mark of the nails, and [placed his] hand into [Jesus’] side” (verse 25)? What reason did he have to not believe the men whom he had traveled with for so long and gotten to know so well? But even though Thomas was wrong to doubt that Jesus had risen from the dead, the other disciples were no better.
The first people to hear the good news that Jesus had risen from the dead were the women who went to anoint Jesus’ body early in the morning after the Sabbath had ended. When they arrived at the tomb, they discovered that the stone, which blocked the entrance to the tomb, had been rolled away. Inside the tomb, Jesus’ body was gone, which perplexed the women. Then, two angels appeared to them and said, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise” (Luke 24:5–7). Then the women remembered Jesus’ words and went to tell the disciples what they had seen and heard. The women were told to tell them these things not only by the angels, but also by Jesus himself, who appeared to them as they returned from the tomb.
What good news the women gave the disciples! Jesus, who had been betrayed by one of their own and arrested, who had died on the cross, as witnessed by John, and who had been placed in a tomb, the entrance to which was blocked by a large stone, was not dead, but alive! He had accomplished the work that he had come to do. He had paid the price for the world’s sins on the cross and declared his victory over sin, death, and the devil by his rising from the dead. The disciples should have been rejoicing when they heard the report of the women. But, when the women told these things to the disciples, “these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them” (Luke 24:11).
The disciples had no reason to think that the women were just telling them an idle tale and that Jesus hadn’t actually risen from the dead. He had told them many times what was going to happen to him. We hear in the gospel according to St. Matthew that, after Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, “[f]rom that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Matthew 16:21). He predicted his death and resurrection to his disciples two more times after that. Then, shortly before he was to be handed over to the religious authorities and arrested, he said to his disciples, “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified” (Matthew 26:2). And finally, on the night that he was to be arrested and sentenced to death, Jesus said to his disciples, “[A]fter I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee” (Matthew 26:32).
When the disciples heard the report of the women, they should have remembered Jesus’ words and believed that he had risen from the dead, just like the women did. But instead, they doubted. It took Jesus appearing before the disciples and showing them the mark of the nails on his hands and the hole in his side from the spear for them to believe. The words that Jesus spoke to Thomas in our text for today may as well have been spoken to all of the disciples: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (verse 29).
You are “those who have not seen and yet have believed.” It was two thousand years ago that Jesus walked the earth. There’s no way that any of you could have seen him. All you have are the words that the Holy Spirit inspired the disciples and the other writers of the Bible to write down. Those words tell you that you are by nature sinful and that you deserve only God’s wrath and punishment. They tell you that there is no way for you to escape God’s wrath and punishment or to earn your way into heaven. But those words also tell you that God the Father loved you so much that he didn’t want to leave you to that dreadful fate. So, he sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to take all of your sin on himself and experience all of the wrath and punishment from God that you rightfully deserved. The mark of the nails on his hands and the hole in his side from the spear is proof of Jesus’ love for you. Jesus was nailed to the cross for you. His side was pierced for you. His death on the cross was so that you would not have to experience that death.
But what God tells us through his Word doesn’t end with Jesus’ death, because if Jesus had remained dead, then you would have no hope. As the apostle Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, “[I]f Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). If Jesus had not been raised, then that would mean that his sacrifice was not sufficient enough to pay for your sins. The good news is that Jesus has been raised from the dead, which means that his sacrifice was sufficient and that your sins have been paid for and forgiven. You have heard the same words that the disciples heard. The disciples were not willing to believe this good news without seeing evidence that Jesus truly had risen. Even though you have not seen any evidence that Jesus has risen, it is through the work of the Holy Spirit that you believe that it’s true.
Does that make you better or more faithful than the disciples? Even though we don’t doubt that Jesus has died on the cross and risen from the dead, there are other things that God has revealed to us through his Word that we do doubt. God tells us that he will be with us in times of trouble, but how do we know for sure that he is with us during those times? After all, it is often during our times of trouble that we feel the most alone. God also tells us that he loves us and will always do what is best for us, but how do we know that this is true? After all, so many others seem to have it better than we do, and not just other Christians, but unbelievers. If unbelievers seem to have it better than we do, how do we know for sure that he loves us and is doing what is best for us? And even though we believe that Jesus truly did die on the cross for the sins of the world, how do we know for sure that Jesus died for our sins? After all, the sins that we have done are so horrible, and they continue to weigh us down. If Jesus really did die for our sins, why do we continue to feel so guilty? What if that means that our sins haven’t actually been forgiven because they are just too great? In all of these instances, as well as many others, our doubts can lead us to not trust in the words that God has spoken to us through Scripture alone. Our doubts can lead us to seek evidence from God that what he has told us is true. In moments like these, we are no better than the disciples, who needed to see the risen Jesus to believe that he had truly risen from the dead.
Whenever we have doubts about what God has revealed to us in his Word and shut the doors of our hearts to him, Jesus passes through the shut doors of our hearts and says to us, “Peace be with you” (verses 19, 26). Jesus brings his peace to us through the means of grace, his Word and Sacraments, and through Holy Absolution. Whenever we doubt that God loves us or that he is with us in times of trouble, Jesus dispels our doubts by pointing us to the promises that he made to us in his Word and saying, “I do love you and will always be with you.” Whenever we doubt that we have been forgiven, Jesus comforts and strengthens us by pointing us to our baptisms and saying, “I have washed away your sins.” Whenever we are burdened with guilt, Jesus leads us to his table to give us his true body and blood in the bread and the wine and says to us, “I forgive you all your sins.” And in Holy Absolution, he uses his called servants of the Word to announce to all of us, “By the authority of Christ, I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” It is not through evidence that our hearts are put at peace. It is Jesus, working through the Word, Sacraments, and Absolution, that puts our hearts at peace.
While it would certainly be amazing to have evidence from God presented to us that what he was revealed to us through his Word is true, we don’t need it, because we already have the eyewitness accounts from the apostles about what Jesus did. Even though those apostles thought that they needed to see proof of Jesus’ resurrection before they could believe, they now tell us to believe without getting any further proof. As the apostle John writes in our text for today, “[T]hese have been written in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and in order that by believing, you may have life in his name” (verse 31). God’s Word is enough. It is through God’s Word that we know why we need a Savior. It is through God’s Word that we know what our Savior has done to save us. It is through God’s Word that we know that the victory has been won for us by our Savior. Whenever we have doubts, we don’t demand that God give us new evidence that what he says is true. We turn to his Word and hear of his great love for us, love that led our Savior, Jesus, to lay down his own life for us, and to hear of the comfort and hope that Jesus used to dispel our doubts, comfort and hope that we have through Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(woodcut from “Doubting Thomas” by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1794-1872)