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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning is the Gospel reading which we sang in the hymn. You may be seated. Christ is risen! Hallelujah.
We younger folk have much to learn from our mothers in the faith and our fathers in the faith, no matter who they may be. Their perspective comes from having borne the heat of the day in the Lord’s vineyard. Their perspective comes from having faithfully carried the cross. These mothers and fathers in the faith about whom I speak, if you were to ask them, as you reflect upon your life, when did the Lord find you the most tuned in to His word and His will?
And I bet you, every single one of your mothers and fathers in the faith would respond and say back to you, the times when God found me the most tuned in to His word and His will, was at a low point or very, very humbled by God. That’s when I was the most tuned in to His word and His will. And if it wasn’t then, it was when I was the most frightened and anxious. That was when I was the most tuned in to His word and His will.
Consider your brothers in the faith, the ten apostles, who Jesus finds with the doors locked for fear of the Jews. God does not wait for them to get their act together, to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, to cinch up their jock, and to get ready to go. He takes them to where they are found in fear, humility, anxiousness, and lowliness. He finds them.
And the first words out of His mouth are not, “‘Tisk, tisk,’ but, “‘Peace be with you.'” And then, if you follow this very clearly, “‘Peace be with you.'” That isn’t some sweet little saying that God is saying in the text. When He says it, it does two things. First, it is a command. You shall receive my peace. But it’s also a promise. My peace will be with you at every point.
And when Jesus speaks those words of peace be with you, did He remove their fear on the outside? No, there’s still people who were wanting to kill Him. Did He change their lot in life? No, they still died. Had to all die a martyr’s death except for John. In the midst of not changing one thing in their life, did God change what was inside of them, where it really matters? God found them in Christ Jesus in this locked room and commands them to have peace and promises them peace forever.
And then notice this very important sentence. After He says, peace be with you, what does Jesus do? He shows them His hands and His side. The very thing we love to dog out Thomas for, Jesus does without any of them asking Jesus, because they don’t have the courage of Thomas or the stupidity, whichever would be there. But I would say courage. At least he was honest. They don’t ask Him, and yet Jesus supplies them because look at the next sentence. He no more shows them His hands and His side, and the text says they were glad when they saw the Lord.
And yet we look at this text sometimes and vilify Thomas. Having bestowed peace in a promise and a command to them. Having shown them His hands and His side, but more importantly, having found them in their fear and anxiousness, in their low state and humbleness, does Jesus send them on a mission? Amen. He doesn’t sit there and debrief them. Now, gentlemen, remember what happened. I first suffered under all of these difficult things, and then I was crucified, as you remember, by Pilate. He doesn’t explain to them deep theological truths as to what happened between when He died on the cross and when He rose from the dead.
What did He see? What did He experience? How did that feel? There’s no interchange of information. In their moment, when they feel the least useful to God… In their moment when they feel the least capable, does God send them on a mission? And that mission, He imparts His Holy Spirit to them and gives them the mission to proclaim forgiveness. To proclaim forgiveness.
Now, where does Satan want to keep these men? In self-pity and in self-loathing does Satan want to keep them. God wants to free them of their self-pity and their self-loathing and the guilt and shame that accompanies it and free them with forgiveness. And He did when He greeted them with, peace be with you. He is saying, all is well between you and me or between me and thee is all well. You have nothing to fear. You have nothing to fear. And in the midst of your humility and anxiety and low estate, am I sending you out to proclaim forgiveness?
Now, Thomas comes in later that day. That’s Easter day. Thomas comes in later. And speaking of which, why didn’t Jesus wait till Thomas got there? Because He knew what He was doing. The whole reason He revealed Himself to these ten without Thomas is for your sake, so that you are drawing strength from Thomas as the example. No. Knowing that Thomas is not there, He reveals Himself so that when Thomas shows up, when Thomas says, I will not believe unless I see His hands and His side, your heart being what it is, when someone admits that they’re weak, temptation, brothers and sisters, is to look down your nose at them and say, I sure wouldn’t do that. But you would never show that in your outward expression or in your words, but you sure would think it. You and I think it.
Thomas is used by God more powerfully than the other ten whom He revealed Himself and they believed. You draw not nearly the amount of strength from the other ten to whom Jesus revealed Himself and they believed as you do from Thomas. Because Thomas is your and my poster child. He is you and I. It is for our instruction and comfort that God uses Thomas in this text. Amen.
And it is our instruction and comfort that Jesus waits a full eight days from Sunday to the following Sunday before He reveals Himself to Thomas. And what day of the week do we get to have Jesus revealed to us every single day of the week? Sunday, the day of His resurrection. Coincidence? I don’t think so. The early fathers and mothers of the church were very wise.
So He comes eight days later. And Jesus does not deride Thomas, does not denigrate Thomas, does not speak down to Thomas. In fact, what does Jesus say to all of them again? Because they were locked in that room again. Peace be with you. That promise and that command, it is with you and you need to receive it. That’s the command.
See, our heart is like Thomas’. It’s also like the other ten, let’s be honest. But Thomas is the poster child for your and my comfort. Like the other ten and like Thomas, our heart tends to two places of station. It either goes too far to the right and we’re very pompous and proud, or it goes too far to the left and we are so full of fear and anxiety that we’re almost paralyzed. The in-between, which we all think that we are found most of the time, we’re like the flag that flies on any pole around here in Texas. One moment it’s blowing this way, and the next moment it’s blowing this way. One moment it’s almost straight out, the next moment it’s limp and weak. That’s our heart. That’s Thomas’ heart. You and I rarely are in this status of being in the middle. We are either proud and pompous, or we are weak and anxious the exact way that God finds these apostles.
Thomas, remember, on the way to have Lazarus healed, he was the one that said, I’m ready to go and die with you, Lord. Didn’t seem to happen, but it would happen because he would be martyred, wouldn’t it? But it would be in humility, not in his vanity. It would be in lowliness, not in pride.
Jesus never disowned Thomas and He never disowned the ten. He embraced them where they were at, did not wait for them to get themselves squared away and good to go, did not wait for them to get all their ducks in a row and to tie up all their loose ends, but took them with their frailties and fraidness and empowered them with peace and forgiveness. And then tells them, just as you have supped deep at my forgiveness well, go and share that.
First and foremost, go and share that forgiveness with one another. Don’t misjudge Thomas as if you think Thomas is less than you and you are greater than Thomas. Forgive Thomas as I have forgiven you. And to Thomas, He’s saying also, Thomas, don’t think yourself to be above or below them. Forgive them as they have forgiven you.
If you forgive the sins of anyone, just as I have forgiven you freely, freely, they are forgiven. If you withhold forgiveness from anyone, even though I have just forgiven you, it is withheld until they repent. We need God’s forgiveness from one another. Husbands, you have to give and receive forgiveness. Wives, you have to give and receive forgiveness. Parents, you have to give and receive forgiveness from your children and to your children. And children, you have to give and receive forgiveness from them.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, in this place, gathered around this altar, do we have to forgive and receive it? And if we’re all about giving it and not receiving it, what are we giving? Because you can’t give what you don’t have. You first must receive forgiveness in order to give it. The woman at Christ’s feet who washed His feet with tears and dried them with her hair is the example. She loved much because she had been forgiven much.
Jesus’s desire for you is He wants you to expect from Him nothing but this, comfort. If you expect from Jesus something other than comfort, what kind of a savior do you have? If He is a savior, He comes to save. If He is one who comes to save, then His desire is for you to have forgiveness and comfort. If you expect something other than that, then you are expecting a different Jesus than the one revealed in Scripture. Jesus expects you to trust that He is your comfort. That’s what our Lord is occupied with in His entire ministry, proclaiming forgiveness.
And in proclaiming forgiveness, there are two responses. Let’s be honest. Either people will receive the forgiveness as we pray by God’s grace we receive forgiveness, or they won’t receive it because they choose not to and harden their hearts against it. That’s the two responses. But that responsibility is not yours to bear. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job and mission. You have only one job, and that is to proclaim the forgiveness that you’ve received.
When you called me to be your pastor, you called me to proclaim forgiveness to you. You called me to say to you, do you believe that the forgiveness I proclaim is not my forgiveness but God’s? And you all say, yes. And I say, let it be done unto you as you believe. That’s what you called me to do. You practice that in your homes first and foremost. You practice that among your family first and foremost. You practice that here first and foremost. And in practicing it in those arenas, you will have what it takes to practice it out there in the real world.
But do you know where you practice it the most? Here, where God forgives you and greets you with peace be with you. His command and His promise. John said it well in the end of this morning’s text. These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in His name. There were many other things that Jesus did which aren’t recorded in the scriptures. But these are written for that purpose.
Because there is no name given among men by which we must be saved except the name of Jesus, from whom you are to expect nothing other than forgiveness in the name of the one who brings peace, commanding you to receive it, and promising you it will be with you, Jesus Himself. Amen. Christ is risen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.