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)