Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio
Grace, mercy, and peace to you this day, from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
It must have been quite a scene. It was evening, and the heat of the day had dissipated somewhat. The frightened sinners huddled together. They were out of sight—they hoped—from the powerful governing authority. If they were discovered, they knew the consequences would likely be swift, sure, and severe. They might beg, and plead, and try to make excuses, but there was little they could do or say that might have any positive effect on the outcome of their situation. The certainty of death loomed over them.
Now, fast forward several centuries. Let’s re-set the stage and replay the scene. Let’s change it from outdoors to indoors. Remove one man and one woman, dressed in fig leaves, gardeners by vocation. Insert ten men, probably clothed in wool and cotton. Several fishermen, and at least one tax collector.
You can change the historical time frame, the location, the costumes, and the characters, but the opening moments of these two dramas start out with all the earmarks of being part of the same tragedy, don’t they? Disobedience, and fear. Isolation, even in the midst of close personal relationships.
The Lord walks into the first of these vignettes seeking and questioning the supporting cast:
“Where are you?”
“Who told you that you were naked?”
“Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat?”
“What is this you have done?”
Accusations, followed by excuses and finger-pointing, followed by consequences: Curses. Hatred. Conflict. Pain. Toil. Death.
Inserted into the midst of this litany of sorrows, however, is a bright glimmer of hope. God tells the woman that one of her offspring will crush the head of him who led her and her husband to the forbidden tree and to the sin that made them cower in fear. The Lord God who walked through the garden seeking His children in the cool of that day on which sin and death came will one day send His Son. This promised One will not only crush evil on the tree of the cross, but will walk through locked doors on the evening of that day in which sin and death’s reign was ended.
Although Adam and Eve’s encounter with the Lord God in the garden, and the disciples’ visit from the risen Lord Jesus in that locked room both begin under similar conditions, things take dramatically different turns. Both episodes started in fear and hiding. But while that appearance of the Lord to our first earthly parents leads to condemnation and banishment, His appearance to our Christian forefathers in that locked room leads to forgiveness and restoration.
His words are not questioning and accusatory, but consoling: “Peace be with you.” He says it twice, not because they didn’t hear it the first time, and not because it wasn’t somehow effective the first time. No, Jesus gives them His peace twice because it has two purposes: The first is to comfort them; to alleviate their fears. It works, for the Word of God always works, when and where He wishes it to. Their fears are driven out, and they rejoiced at the sight of their Lord.
But the second giving of His peace is not for them alone, for Jesus tells them in the very next moment that they are to depart with that peace: “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”
This second peace which they have received is a peace which is to be carried forth, a message with which they are to be the Lord’s messengers—to be His “angels,” if you will. Rather than barring the way to earthly paradise with a flaming sword and cherubim like those God set at the gate of Eden after He had driven the first sinners out, these new angels—the apostles—would cleave open the way to heavenly paradise with the sharp, two-edged sword of His Word. They would proclaim both Law and the Gospel to the world, and by this many would repent and be saved.
Adam and Eve had been sent out from the garden in shame and defeat, a sentence of death hanging over their heads. The apostles, though, would be sent out with confident trust in the victory, the promises, and the gifts of the risen Savior.
And the very first gift Jesus gives to them, apart from His peace, is the Holy Spirit. He gives them God. He gives them the person of God who bestows and strengthens faith. And he authorizes them, as His called and sent representatives, to exercise that person’s power. Not for their own benefit, not to bring themselves glory—but to grant the forgiveness of sins, salvation, and eternal life to those who believe.
Fast forward several more centuries. Not quite twenty, to be more precise. Many men, many women, many children. Clothes of cotton and wool, but some polyester and rayon and silk mixed in, too. Vocations in education and technology, law and medicine, sales and service. Not cowering in physical fear, perhaps.
But you still recognize that you have offended God and broken His rules. You have sampled forbidden fruits. You have run away and hidden yourself, both from God and from your fellow human beings. But eventually and regularly, the Holy Spirit that you received in your baptism—the same Holy Spirit who Jesus bestowed on His Church in that locked room on that first Easter evening—works on you just as He did on those apostles and on all other Christians of every time and place.
You realize again and again the dark and desperate eternal predicament you would be in, apart from being reconciled with Him. You might not truly suffer too greatly in this life, or be banished from the enjoyment of earthly things, for we all know and see that a great many unbelievers live in ways that seem more pleasant to our eyes of this world. But the Spirit reminds you that you need Christ and His peace if you are to have any hope beyond this life and the grave that awaits you at the end.
And it’s that sure and certain hope of reconciliation with God and the eternal life it brings which is the only real reason for you to be here today and every Lord’s Day. That hope is given to you in the declaration of the forgiveness of your sins, and guaranteed you by the resurrection of the crucified Christ. Apart from that hope and assurance, all the rest of this means nothing.
You ought not be here because of beautiful architecture, outstanding music, or stained glass windows. You ought not be here because of friendships, social or work connections, or family relationships. You ought not be here because having your name on the church membership list gives you a tuition discount, or the privilege of having your wedding here. You ought not be here because you happen to like the way I write a sermon, or the way Pastor Nuckols delivers one. Because none of those things matters when God confronts you in your sin and asks, “What is this you have done?”
What truly matters is not what you do, or think, or feel, or like and dislike about this congregation. What matters is what God does right here—for you, for me, and for all those around you: He ends your warfare with Him, and your alienation from Him, by declaring His peace, unilaterally.
Beginning when He first grants you His Holy Spirit in the moment of your baptism or when the Spirit works through His Word to turn your proud but fearful heart to Him in contrition and repentance, that peace is yours because He has made you His. When His message of salvation in Christ reaches you through the music or architecture or windows or art in the place where He has promised to be with His gifts, you have that reconciliation.
In the declaration of the absolution after you have confessed your sins, in the reading and singing and chanting and faithful preaching of His Word, no matter how eloquently or how clumsily it might be done, the Lord reaches into the hidden places and into the hiding places of your life, and He scrubs your soul clean.
Do not think this is something you had any part in, for the guilty soul hides from God and fears to come to Him. But the Holy Spirit that Jesus has given to His Church—and to you—draws you from behind the shrubbery and the locked doors. He moves you ever toward Jesus.
And isn’t that what reconciliation and peace are all about; being moved closer and closer to the one with whom we’ve been in conflict? Yet God, for the sake of the sinless life, suffering, and death of Jesus, has declared that conflict over. Jesus has defeated the root causes of your conflict with God. He has beaten the devil, the world, and your own sinfulness.
He has not only destroyed their power to ever master you again, but his resurrection destroyed the possibility that the consequences of your sin could ever fully separate His faithful ones from Him, now or eternally.
So don’t let your worries and your fears of God or this world make you hide or separate yourself from Him. Don’t let your personal preferences and your worldly priorities lock you away, keeping you from coming here to where He comes close to you and makes Himself fully known. Listen for His word of peace. Go not your own way, but be sent as He would send you. Receive once again His Holy Spirit, and at His altar let Him give you the same crucified flesh and blood He showed to His disciples, so that you might have both peace and comfort.
And may that peace of God, which surpasses all of our human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in our risen Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.
