Easter 2 Quasimodogeniti

John 20:19-31 – Quasimodo Geniti – April 15, 2012
Our Historical Faith

Christ is risen.  He is risen indeed.  Alleluia! That word “indeed” is an important word.  We do not say “He is risen in my faith,” or “He is risen in my hopes and dreams.”  That would be ridiculous.  No, we say, “He is risen indeed, in fact, in reality. Alleluia!”  The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is an historical event no less than His crucifixion and death under Pontius Pilate.  Our faith does not rely on anyone’s religious thoughts.  We don’t rely on what is within us; our faith relies on what is outside of us.  We rely on actual events that really happened.  Christian faith corresponds to reality. 

What we preach and what we believe depend entirely on Christ being raised from the dead.  St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.”  What we preach and what we believe is true. 

Jesus’ death and Resurrection always go together.  If Jesus had not died, that would mean that no one bore our sins in our place.  That would be very bad news for us.  If Jesus had died, but had not risen, that would mean that although He tried, He failed to take our sin away.  That would be equally bad news for us.  Just as Jesus’ death was the result of God the Father pouring all His wrath upon His incarnate Son instead of upon us, so also was His Resurrection the result of God the Father being fully satisfied with what His Son offered in our place. 

Having no sin of His own, Jesus took ours away forever.  Deserving no death of His own, He suffered our death for us.  Jesus paid the full penalty for our sin.  And because it was all paid for, the grave could not hold Jesus.  The clutches of death held onto an innocent Man and had no choice but to let Him go, never to claim Him again.  He therefore took from death its authority and power to hold on to any of us either.  Because when God raised Jesus from the dead, He declared His work to be a complete success.  He declared the whole world of sinners innocent of sin.  Death lost its sting forever.  The victory belongs to Christ alone, and He shares it with us.  All this occurred while we were still sinners, even before we were born, even before we could believe it.  The life we have in Christ is real and objective.  It doesn’t depend on us.  Our faith corresponds to what has actually happened. 

“My Lord and my God!”  What a wonderful confession of this faith.  That’s what Thomas said when he was finally able to see and feel that everything that I just said was true.  He was absolutely right.  The Resurrection proved who Jesus was.  There is no other god than the God who became man, who suffered and died, who was buried and rose again.  Jesus is Lord, and there is none beside Him.  All authority in heaven and on earth is His. 

The disciples had doubted.  By refusing to believe in the Resurrection they had refused to believe what the Resurrection had accomplished – that is, they refused to believe that Jesus had earned for them the forgiveness of their sins.  They were afraid.  It was not until Jesus had shown to them His wounds that they were finally glad to see Him.  This is because the peace and joy that Jesus gives cannot be separated from the objective fact that He who was crucified for us is now raised by God.  They needed to see this connection.  And so Jesus appeared among them, and His first order of business was to give them what His suffering and death had earned, and what His resurrection had confirmed.  “Peace be with you” He said.  When Jesus says this, He actually gives what the words say: real peace between God and sinners. 

Thomas had also doubted.  He wasn’t there that first night.  But his doubt was no different than the doubt that the others had had.  In fact, by having been absent, Thomas was given the opportunity to express more clearly the reason why he and the others, or anyone today for that matter, find it so hard to believe.  “Unless I see,” he said.  “… unless I feel, I will never believe.”  And so Jesus came to Thomas in the same way that He came to the others: “Peace be with you. Put your finger here … see here … Do not disbelieve, but believe.” 

It seems like Jesus just gave in to the unbelieving demands of Thomas; doesn’t it?  In times of doubt, many Christians have demanded something to see or to feel in order to confirm their faith too.  But Jesus makes no promise to oblige.  Then why did He oblige Thomas and the others by letting them see and feel?  He did this in order to confirm for us the Apostles’ testimony.  This was for our sake, so that we may know that the Resurrection is not just a pious hope in the hearts of the more faithful, but it is an historical reality, recorded faithfully in the Bible. 

The Apostle John writes at the end of our lesson, “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”   What the Apostles taught, what was written by their authority, corresponds to reality.  They were eye-, and as it were, hand-witnesses to the truth of the gospel.  This was for our benefit.  Scripture is written for our learning.  And it is reliable.  “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” 

That’s us.  But even we still have doubts.  And there are different kinds of doubts.  We doubt the facts.  Is it all really possible?  Did these things happen?  Or are they mixed up with unreliable myths?  Can we even know?  We doubt the effect.  Could this be for me?  Have I not gone too far?  Has God really cancelled out all my transgressions – even the ones that still tempt me?  Have I not sinned too greatly for God to give me peace despite my rebellion?  But all these doubts, in their various manifestations in our hearts and minds, are allayed by the same divine truth: the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  All these doubts are allayed by the certainty that because Jesus is raised from the dead, all our sins are indeed forgiven. 

No longer is Jesus coming to us to direct our eyes to His wounds.  No, we can’t see them.  He doesn’t tell us to feel the evidence that He is risen.  What would we feel?  He does not give to us what Thomas demanded.  But He gives to us what Thomas needed.  And this is important!  He gives to us what the disciples did not at first believe.  He gives to us faith in His word that only the Holy Spirit can create.  He gives us this faith by giving to us the forgiveness of our sins in the word that we hear.   He allays our doubts, which He knows full well, with the very words of doubting sinners. 

“Peace to you! Jesus said, As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And 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 them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” 

With these words, Jesus sent out the first ministers of the Church with what He elsewhere calls the keys of the kingdom of heaven.  He did this by giving to them the exact same thing that they were sent to give to us.  They were sent to give us the fruit of Christ’s death and Resurrection by preaching the gospel and administering the sacraments.  That’s my job as your pastor.  Jesus tells me to do nothing else, because nothing else gives to you what Jesus’ resurrection has won. 

The forgiveness of our sins never originates in sinful man.  It finds its source always in Jesus Christ our Lord and God who alone made full satisfaction for all our sins.  His wounds demonstrate this.  The forgiveness of sins is received by faith alone.  This means that it is yours as much as mine as much as any pastor’s as much as St. Peter’s or St. Thomas’.  Your pastors absolve you of your sin not because we have something that you do not.  It is the exact opposite.  I absolve you because I am called and sent by God to give to you what belongs to you.  It is yours by divine right of your Baptism where we were first buried and raised with Christ our Savior.  You receive this forgiveness by faith alone. 

But what is faith?  Faith saves us not because of how much we might have or how strong it is or how well it is able to reflect upon itself.  No, faith saves us because of what it receives, and our faith receives everything that God gives for our salvation.  That is why we direct our faith to what God promises. 

The forgiveness of our sins never originates in sinful man.  No, but it does come to you from sinful man.  Because instead of inviting us to look upon and touch His risen body, Jesus gives us something better, yes better than what sight and touch can receive.  He gives us pastors to speak to us His word and His blessing.  “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  By His word the waters of Baptism give us life for death; by His word He gives us His body and blood to eat and drink for the forgiveness that we need to live.  Jesus bids us to believe and take to heart the words His servants speak to us when they forgive us our sins by His command.  Their words correspond to reality. 

We do not do as the disciples first did when they were afraid of the Jews.  We don’t lock ourselves inside of our own religious thoughts for fear of our sin and guilt and doubt.  We do not wait with anxiety until the Lord finally appears in our hearts giving us peace with God.  In our hearts we find the very source of our disobedience to God and disregard for our neighbor.  In our heart we find the very source of our unbelief.  But we need Jesus to come to us where He has promised to meet our need for faith by breathing on us His Holy Spirit.  We don’t make demands like Thomas did.  Instead we rebuke our sinful flesh that loves to doubt, and we silence the devil who loves to tempt; we boldly confess our sins to God despite what anything inside of us tells us and we say: I cling to what my Savior taught and trust it whether felt or not. 

Dear Christians, your risen Savior from sin, death, and the devil teaches you.  He says to His whole Church on earth: “What is forgiven here, right here, is forgiven in heaven.”  We pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  The gospel here on earth corresponds to reality in heaven.  Because the work that Jesus gives the Church to do is the same work that Jesus does.  He forgives sins.  He promises, saying to His called pastors, “You do your work, and Mine shall already be accomplished.” 

The gospel that we hear, the absolution you receive is nothing more than the truth proclaimed that Jesus bore all of our sins on the cross, and that God raised Him from the dead.  This is what happened.  And it happened for you.  Whoever believes this believes not what man says, but what God has done.  And, believing, we have exactly what His word declares. 

You have peace with God.  Your sins are forgiven.  Christ died for you.  God raised Him from the dead, and so God will raise you to life as well to be righteous and blameless and innocent with your Savior Jesus Christ forever.  Your Christian faith corresponds to reality simply because your faith holds onto and claims for itself the most real and trustworthy thing there is: the word of God.  This is what Jesus taught Thomas who doubted it.  And this is why we call pastors according to our Savior’s command and promise – to continue to give to us what is ours.  We know where to find Jesus.  It is where He comes to us with peace from God by word and sacrament and says, “Be not unbelieving, dear Christian, but believing; your sins are forgiven you.”  And so they are.  You are forgiven indeed.  Alleluia!   

In Jesus’ name, Amen