Easter 2

John 20:19-31 - Quasimodo Geniti - April 7, 2013 

The Arm of The Lord Is Revealed

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  Amen. 

On Good Friday I preached a sermon on St. John’s account of our Lord’s Passion.  I decided to focus on an event that occurred only after Jesus died on the cross, but while His dead body was still suspended for all to see.  The piercing of Jesus’ side fulfilled Scripture not only by sparing His bones from being broken, but also because, as Zechariah foretold, “They shall look on Him whom they pierced.”  When Jesus was pierced by the Roman soldier, a flow of blood and water came forth from His side. 

John, the Apostle, saw it.  He bore witness.  And yet only the Holy Spirit can reveal to us the significance of Christ’s death. 

And He does.  We learn from the Holy Spirit by listening to the inspired words of Holy Scripture. 

The One who was nailed to the cross on Mt. Calvary is the eternal Son of God.  The eternal Son of God came to save us in no other way than by becoming the despised Son of Man.  This is He who came by water and blood.  This is what John is talking about in the Epistle lesson we just heard——And what it means is that the Holy Spirit does not direct us to the God of our salvation apart from where our God shed His blood on the cross to redeem us.  If our faith is to embrace God and so taste victory over sin and death, then our faith must embrace the cross of Jesus.  Our faith must embrace that which John himself witnessed and swore by.  And the Spirit, the water, and the blood all agree.  That is why we also – still by faith today – look on Him whom we have pierced. 

I had hoped last Friday to renew an appreciation for the symbol of the crucifix, because the piercing of Christ reveals for us that, even in His resurrected glory, Jesus is identified by His wounds.  We see this played out very clearly in our Gospel lesson this morning. 

And, you know, I took my own words to heart a little bit.  Last Sunday on Easter I looked at that beautiful crucifix on the altar and saw the gash in His side.  But then I also noticed something about the way both Jesus’ hands were positioned that I hadn’t noticed before.  And it struck me that this is really great symbolism too.  He’s holding His hands like this: +.  This is what I do when I absolve and consecrate and bless — whenever I make the sign of the cross on you, I hold my hand like this. 

Now, there’s significance to how I position my fingers, and whoever crafted that crucifix there knew it.  Let me explain.  I’ve got my three fingers here: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  God’s blessings are always triune.  The forgiveness of sins is always the forgiveness of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  And the Father and the Son and the Spirit agree!  But there is no way to communicate with this God, there is no way that this God communicates with us other than through these two fingers here: the two natures of Christ.  We’ve got the divine nature and the human nature – always and forever together, bound as One.  The divine Son of God always deals with us as the Man Jesus Christ who bore our griefs and carried our sorrows.  And how does He deal with us?  Well, He forgives us.  And this forgiveness is the forgiveness of the eternal, triune God.  This is how the Arm of the Lord, so-to-speak, is revealed.  Even on the cross where His hands were nailed, God’s purpose was clear, and that-there crucifix symbolizes it: that Christ suffered and died with you in mind, that through His death, you would be blessed.  

And this is how this all ties into our Gospel lesson this morning.  While the disciples were gathered together, with the door locked for fear of the Jews who killed Jesus, Jesus who was killed by the Jews came and stood in their midst.  What terror!  This is He from whose death they fled.  This is the One whom they forsook.  This is the Lord whom they loved, whom they swore they would never leave – even if they had to die with Him.  And yet while He was despised and rejected by men, they too hid, as it were, their faces from Him.  He was despised, and they did not esteem Him. 

And now in His resurrected glory, He stood before them.  We ought to assume that they were scared.  They were.  But Jesus had not come to condemn them for their sin.  Instead, He dispelled all fear by saying, “Peace be with you.”  And when He had said this, what did He do?  He showed them His hands and His side.  He showed them what we have symbolized right here on the crucifix.  He showed them that which paid for the peace He was freely giving.  

Then, and only then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 

Jesus forgave them their sins.  And in their happiness that He was alive, Jesus gave also to us the significance of the fact that He lives:

“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending 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 withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.’” 

Even here we see that the forgiveness of sins is the forgiveness of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The forgiveness I speak in Jesus’ name is not mine.  It is God’s.  As a called and ordained servant of Christ, He sent me.  When I deal with you +, therefore, in the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, it is your Lord who deals with you.  The position of my hand should remind you of this.  Of course, it is only symbolism — my hand that is — just like the symbol of the crucifix.  It’s just a symbol.  But the words are not mere symbols.  

A symbol points to a reality outside of itself.  But the words of Jesus actually deliver the reality.  They are grounded in events that actually happened.  And that’s why we use these symbols to remind us of the events that actually happened.  Jesus was crucified.  The Father sent Him for this very purpose – to pay for the sins of humanity.  The judgment against your thoughts and wasted hours of selfishness were executed by God upon His Son for you.  Every drop of righteous anger was poured out and drunk to its bitter dregs even to the point when Jesus breathed His last by committing to His Father the Holy Spirit.  This happened. 

Death alone on its own is a terrible thing.  It reminds us of what our sins have earned.  Maybe this is why the image of the crucifix has been rejected among Protestants for so long in favor of a bare cross.  But the symbolism teaches us so much!  Because the Christ who was crucified is the Christ who is risen.  And just as the Father sent Him to pay for salvation, so Jesus sends His ministers to deliver what He paid for.  Just as Jesus breathed out His Spirit when He had earned salvation on the cross, so He breathed out His Spirit when giving it to us as well.  “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whosoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven.” 

When we open our Divine Services with the Confession of sins and Absolution, we are not just trudging through a ritual.  It’s not symbolic.  Reality itself is being affected.  Of course your sins were forgiven long ago.  That’s reality.  And the whole world was absolved when Jesus, who bore the world’s sin, was raised by the Father.  That’s reality.  But here through the words that Jesus speaks, the Holy Spirit is given to you so that you might believe it.  You need reality to come to you.  You need to know that God’s forgiveness is real.  And just as Jesus permeated closed doors to stand bodily in the midst of His scared disciples, so He permeates our unbelieving hearts today.  He does so by speaking.  And we hear it. 

He is here — not just in some mystical or symbolic sense, not simply insofar as our emotions allow it to feel real.  No, He is here as true God and true Man wherever His words are spoken to give to you what He has earned.  And His words are spoken – here, where two or three, or a hundred and ten are gathered in His name.  He is here.  Jesus says your sins are forgiven.  And they are. 

Faith believes it.  Unbelief rejects it. 

Thomas didn’t believe.  He wasn’t there.  Eight days passed.  Nothing would persuade him.  He knew Jesus died.  But He could not believe that He had risen.  By not believing that Jesus had been raised, He wasn't just doubting the fact that Jesus was now OK and doing well.  No, he was doubting the fact that Jesus’ sacrifice accomplished anything worth while.  He was doubting that his sins had been paid for, and that Jesus’ payment was accepted by the Father.  By doubting the resurrection, He was refusing to believe that Jesus’ life had any lasting value at all. 

Well, Eight days later, Jesus came and appeared to Thomas.  And perhaps Jesus chided him a little bit.  Thomas is easy to pick on for this.  “Doubting Thomas,” we call him.  The other disciples had told you, Thomas.  Why didn’t you believe?  But we know perfectly well why he didn’t believe.  He didn’t see. 

I’m not sure if Thomas was being overly obstinate.  I think for sure he was being honest.  “If I don’t see for myself,” he said, “I know that I won’t believe!”  Neither would have any of the other disciples.  Thomas knew his weakness.  Oh, they tried to persuade him – sure.  But the disciples learned a valuable lesson themselves, you know.  Their methods of persuasion, their urgency and assurance of faith were not enough to dispel doubt in Thomas’ heart.  The passion of the preacher is not what grounds the Christian in true faith.  No.  Thomas needed Jesus.  So do we.  And so Jesus came to Him.  He showed Thomas what He showed His other disciples.  He showed him His hands that bore the wrath of God against his sin, and His side that revealed it was finished.  He showed him His resurrected body.  He gave Thomas what he needed to believe. 

And He did so in order to give to us what we need to believe. 

“My Lord and my God!” Thomas cried.  Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” 

Now, this is not to say that Jesus is so impressed with our visionless faith as compared to Thomas’.  No.  This is not where our blessedness comes from.  Our blessedness comes from the same place that Thomas’s came from.  Jesus gave Thomas what he needed to see and feel to believe in order to ground the preaching of the Apostles in reality.  They did not spread the Gospel by proclaiming what was in their hearts – what they wanted to believe – no, but by proclaiming what God had done beyond a shadow of a doubt.  Jesus gave Thomas what he needed to believe, because his faith depended on it.  Yes, and so does ours. 

Our faith depends on that which Thomas witnessed.  The Holy Spirit witnesses to facts when He creates faith in our hearts.  Our faith is the victory that overcomes the world because it lays hold of Him who overcame all sin and doubt by dying and rising. That is why the ministry of the Gospel that saves you is a message that deals with facts.  It announces to you what God has done, and pronounces on you what God says because of it. 

Isaiah, in his 53^rd chapter, which is the clearest treatment in all Scripture of Christ’s suffering and death on the cross, begins by asking the question: “Who has believed our report?  And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”  The preaching of the cross is an easily despised message.  To think that God’s strength is found in such a display of weakness.  Who would believe it?   Thomas wouldn’t.  Neither would we.  We should know our weakness, as Thomas learned his.  We would not – we could not – believe the Gospel unless the peace that Jesus won on the cross were delivered to us by our risen Lord. 

And it is.  Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to His disciples not to erase the image of His suffering and death, but to remind them of it – to root their preaching in it, and to base their absolution on it.  We cannot see Jesus.  But we hear the Holy Spirit testify to what Thomas saw when we hear the preaching of Christ crucified and raised.  And blessed are we who are content to see Him, not in His resurrected glory, but + in the sign of the cross — where God forgives us, where He blesses us and keeps us, makes His face shine upon us, and gives us peace.  This is where God acts.  This is the arm of the Lord revealed.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.