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Christ is risen. He has risen indeed. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Dear Saints, it’s evening on the first Easter and ten of the twelve are gathered in the upper room and they’ve locked the door. They’ve barred it shut because they are afraid. They are afraid that what happened to Jesus will also happen to them. They’re afraid that the Jews who hated Jesus also will hate them, and who arrested Jesus will also arrest them, and who handed Jesus over to be crucified will also hand them over to be crucified.
Now it’s good for us to notice that not only at this point do they not believe the resurrection, they do not believe that Jesus is truly up out of the grave, even though the angels sent the women to tell them, and even though some of the women had seen Jesus and reported it already to them, and two of them had seen the empty tomb. They do not yet believe it.
But not only that, not only do they not believe the resurrection of Jesus, they do not believe any of the promises of Jesus. They are simply afraid, afraid to suffer and afraid to die. So they’re locked there in the room where Jesus comes to them.
Now, Jesus does not use the door, but He just shows up in the midst of them. And we should notice this, that Jesus is going to be present with them in a very different way than He was before His death and resurrection. I think we have in the Bible fourteen times where Jesus appears to the disciples, and they’re all quite mysterious. He’ll just simply pass through the door and show up in the midst of them. It’s what the theologians call the translocal mode of presence. That just means we don’t know how it works. But whatever it means, it does not mean that Jesus is a ghost. It does not mean that He’s some sort of wispy sort of thing that can pass through the walls.
In fact, Jesus says, “Look, I’ve got flesh and bones. I can eat the fish. I’m not a ghost.” If anything, Jesus is so real that the door is like a vapor to Him that He can pass through it. But anyway, He comes into their midst and He says these most wonderful words: “Peace be with you.” And He shows them His hands and His side. That, dear saints, is where we find our peace in the wounds of Jesus. How wonderful. And it says the disciples were glad. Their fear begins to mix with peace. Their sorrow now is being overtaken by gladness.
But then Jesus has a sermon to give to them, and I don’t think that they… I mean, Jesus has to clarify Himself, because it’s a frightful sermon at first. Verse 21, Jesus says to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father sent Me, so I am now sending you.” And I think they say, “That’s what we are afraid of.” The Father sent you to suffer. The Father sent you to die. The Father sent you to give your life for the salvation of the world. The Father sent you from heaven down to earth to undergo all of these things, and that’s exactly what we are afraid of.
But then Jesus clarifies, and this is really quite wonderful because the disciples are not sent to die for the sins of the world. Jesus did that already. The atonement is accomplished. Forgiveness of sins is won already. The “it is finished” stands. Jesus is going to send the disciples not to do the same thing that He did, but to deliver the same gifts that He won. When He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Jesus sends out His disciples, and He sends out His church with this peculiar authority to forgive sins and to bind sins. This is the Lord’s gift of the absolution. It’s really quite wonderful. Jesus is saying to the disciples, “Look, don’t worry. Your job is not to die. That was my job. Your job is to forgive the sins of all those who repent and to bind the sins of those who refuse to repent, but chiefly this forgiveness, this loosing, experiencing, this joy of the absolution.”
And then Jesus is gone. He disappears as quickly as He appeared. And the text tells us that Thomas, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came, that he came back. Now, I want to pause here because the drama of the text has to do with Thomas, and I want to think about this a little bit, and I’m going to give you… I’m going to tell you how I imagine it, so just know that I might be imagining a little bit beyond the text. I’m trying not to, though. You don’t have to be the judge of that.
We have to think about this, that Thomas was not there when the other ten were. Now, we don’t know where he was. I used to think he had gone grocery shopping. But I think differently now. We know why the ten were in the upper room, because they were afraid. So if Thomas is not there, that means that he is not afraid, or at least he’s able to overcome his fear to leave.
Now we remember, I mean we always think of Thomas as doubting Thomas because of what he’s about to say to us in the text, but we should remember that the first time that we see Thomas in the Gospels, he’s not doubting, but he’s courageous. It’s when they learn that Lazarus had died, and Jesus is going to go to Bethany near Jerusalem to heal Lazarus. And all the other disciples say, “Lord, last time you were there, they tried to kill you, and they’re even more mad now. If we go to Jerusalem, they’re going to try to kill you, and it’s going to be miserable, and they’ll arrest you, and you’re probably going to die.” And Jesus says, “Let’s go.”
And Thomas says—remember Thomas says—“We will go with you, and if we die, we die.” Thomas, then, is Thomas the bold. Thomas the willing to die. Thomas the unafraid. Thomas the courageous. Thomas the one who didn’t doubt Jesus, who was glad to go with Him and suffer all, even death, rather than to fall away from Christ. That’s Thomas.
And now, while the ten are afraid, what’s Thomas doing? He’s not going to sit around. The tomb is empty. He probably went to double-check. The women said that they had met Jesus on the street. He probably went to find Him. Jesus is out there. “I’m going to go find Him. I’m going to track Him down, either His body or His raised self. I’m going to know. I’m not afraid. If they arrest me, they arrest me. If they kill me, they kill me. I already gave up my life to follow Jesus anyways.”
In other words, Thomas is not in the upper room because he’s not afraid, and then he comes back and all those ten scaredy-cats tell him that Jesus had just shown up. Now just imagine the indignation of Thomas. Couldn’t Jesus just have waited five minutes for me to get back? I’m the one, after all, out there looking for Him, and He appeared to you guys and not to me? You guys are sitting here shaking and afraid and He comes and blesses you, and no, Jesus, surely I know Jesus. Jesus would have waited for me. At least He would have waited, or He would have waited till I got back and showed Himself then. If He’s raised from the dead, He can come any time He wants. Why doesn’t He just come now?
We see Thomas’s escalating anger, and it’s a sort of a stunning thing, right? Because you have to think that the ten had gone from fear to joy, from doubt to faith, from burial to resurrection—the ten. And they’re sort of bubbling over with joy, and they’re thinking to themselves, “I can’t wait until Thomas comes. When Thomas comes back, we’ll tell Thomas, and he’ll have the same joy that we have.”
And then Thomas comes to the door, and he gives the secret knock to let him know that it’s him and not the police, you know? And then they let him in: “Thomas, you’re not gonna believe! We saw Jesus. He was here. He was just here. He showed us His hands. He showed us His feet. He’s risen. He’s raised from the dead. It was right what the women said. That’s why He’s not in the tomb. They didn’t steal His body. He’s raised, like He said. Remember how He told us that? Like three times He told us, ‘We did.’ Thomas, He’s alive. He’s here.”
And Thomas is getting… his shock is turning into anger, into unbelief. As their joy is escalating, his frustration is escalating. “I won’t believe it.”
You can hear it in what he says. He says, “Until I see His hand. No, until I touch His hand. No, until I put my hand into His side. I will not believe.” And you got to think about this, that there’s this joy, and, “Oh, He’s raised, and now we can go to Galilee, like He said, and we’ll meet Him there in Galilee.” And so they’re all excited about this, and Thomas just simply refuses to believe.
And the joy of the ten now has to become a quiet joy. They’re whispering in the corner, and Thomas is now smoldering on the other side of the room. They’re trying to figure out how to manage this whole thing—this joy that they have and this anger of Thomas. I just think that it would have gotten quiet in the upper room pretty quick, and it probably would have stayed pretty quiet and pretty tense for eight days—eight days.
Jesus waits until the next Sunday, and then He comes again. Eight days later they were inside, and Thomas was there. You can imagine that Thomas is not going to let the ten out of his sight. And I think—and this is, again, a speculation of mine—but, you know, I mean, Jesus tells the women to tell the disciples to meet Him in Galilee. Jesus wants to get them to Galilee as quick as possible, but it’s eight days later, they’re still in Jerusalem, they haven’t left, and I’m just guessing that’s because of Thomas. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere.”
So they’re all together, the doors are locked, Jesus comes and stands in the middle of them, and He greets them again: “Peace be with you.” And then He says to Thomas, “All right, put your finger here. See my hands. Put your hand here on my side. Don’t be unbelieving. Be believing.” And Thomas, oh, I imagine weeping with joy. Thomas answers with one of the most beautiful sentences in the whole Scripture, “My Lord and my God.”
I imagine all the disciples were weeping for joy because now the joy of the resurrection is not just for Jesus, it’s not just for them, it’s also for Thomas. This is this thing that we want, right, that drives us to speak of the resurrection of Jesus to those that we love, that they would share in the same joy. “My Lord and my God.”
And then Jesus says to Thomas, as a slight rebuke to him but as a blessing for you, “Have you believed because you’ve seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.” And then, as if John is just done writing even though he has another chapter left, he’s gonna finish his book. “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.”
The whole of Scriptures are written for us that the Lord would, through them and through faith in them, give us a life that doesn’t end, give us immortality. God be praised that just as Jesus is risen, we also will be raised and live forever.
Now what do we make of the text? Maybe a couple of… we’ll pull out a couple of things and try to make some application.
Number one, we want to notice that Jesus is present with His disciples and with us differently after the resurrection than before the resurrection. Here’s the key thing. You know how Thomas came back into the room and he said, “I’m not going to believe unless I see His hands and put my finger in His hands and put my hand in His side.” They, Thomas and all the other disciples, thought that Jesus had left. But it turns out Jesus was there listening.
Because when Jesus shows up eight days later, here, He uses the same exact words that Thomas used in his denunciation. The same exact words. He says to him, “Thomas, your finger, put it here, like you said you wanted to. Here’s my hand, put your finger here. Oh, and you also mentioned last week, I was listening, you mentioned that you wanted to put your hand on my side. Well, okay, you can go ahead and do that now too.” And Thomas realizes that the whole time, even though he couldn’t see Him, that Jesus was there, truly there, present.
So also for us. Jesus’ ascension does not mean that He has left us, that He’s somehow far away from us, that He doesn’t know what’s going on. No. Christ is with us. He says it. Even right as He’s about to ascend, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age. I will never leave you or forsake you.” That the risen Jesus is here with us now. And He’s always with you, always helping you, always protecting you, always keeping you with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
He is with us in a different way than He was with His disciples before His crucifixion, but He is truly with us. God be praised.
And here’s another thing that we want to take home: that the risen Jesus gives us peace. This is what Jesus is always saying after He’s raised from the dead: “Peace be with you. My peace I leave with you, not as the world gives to you do I give to you. Peace be yours.” Now, there’s a lot of trouble in this life, and I suppose that all of us have different troubles. I mean, all of us have sin. All of us have a sinful flesh. All of us live in the world. All of us have the devil. All of us have different troubles and temptations. All of us are in different states of mourning and agony and trouble and all this sort of stuff. All of us have different fears, but we have the same Jesus who comes speaking peace.
And here’s a third thing which has to do with this. This peace comes in the forgiveness of sins. Jesus breathes on the disciples, breathes the Holy Spirit onto them. We should remember the Garden of Eden where the Lord breathed His life-giving breath into Adam and Adam became a living being. Now Jesus breathes on the disciples and the church becomes the living body of Christ, and to do what? To forgive sins.
Jesus sends the disciples, He sends out pastors, He sends out His Christians to forgive sins. That word that was spoken to you all a few minutes ago when I stood by the font and said, “I forgive you all your sins,” it’s because of what Jesus did on the Sunday after Easter. And it’s a true thing. It’s a true forgiveness. Your sins really are sent away by the Lord.
But it’s not just me that can do it. Every Christian has that authority. We should remember that. I think especially in our families that fathers and mothers are forgiving sins of the children if the children ever sin. That grandparents are forgiving the sins of their grandchildren. That children are forgiving the sins of the parents.
That Christians are forgiving the sins of the neighbor, and not just—and this is maybe important—not just the sins that are committed against you. We should forgive those for sure, the sins committed against us, but any time you hear a guilty conscience, any time you hear someone struggling over their own breaking of God’s law, you also have the same Holy Spirit that Jesus gave to the disciples to say to them, “In the name of Jesus, I forgive you your sins,” or if that’s going to freak them out, “In the name of Jesus, your sins are forgiven.” Your sins are forgiven.
There’s so much hullabaloo about evangelism and the church and all this sort of stuff. I mean, this is just what it should be. We should just go out forgiving sins. That’s what Jesus sends us to do. The sins that He’s died for, He wants people to know about. But the sins that He suffered for and atoned for on the cross, He wants the world to know about it. And He wants us to live in it.
So we rejoice that Jesus still, even today, comes to us, and He comes not in anger, He comes not in frustration, He comes not in judgment. He comes to you, dear friends, in peace because He died for you and was raised for you. Amen.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Hallelujah.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
