April 27 -- Second Sunday of Easter

Listen to this sermon HERE.

Grace to you and peace on this side of the Resurrection!  AMEN.

We are on this side of the Resurrection!  We are Easter people in a Good Friday world, as some like to say!  We rest assured in Christ’s victory over sin and death, and we live lives that bear witness to Jesus as the way, the truth and the life!  So do you know what that looks like?  The plainest most down-to-earth, flesh-and-bone way that we bear witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ?  

Receiving God’s forgiveness and therefore forgiving others.  

It’s all about forgiveness.  

Go back a few chapters in this gospel with me:  The disciples have really been through a lot!  Boy, after all they’ve been through... They’ve been traveling with Jesus; they watched as the crowds welcomed him joyously into Jerusalem, praising him, waving their palm branches: “Hosanna to the son of David!”  Then remember how quickly everyone turned?  The temple leaders plotted to arrest him.  But Jesus keeps on and shares a special meal with them later in the week, where he gets down on his knees after the meal and washes their feet, the job of a slave!  Then they go to a garden, where the authorities arrest him.  At this point the disciples all run away, except Peter and one other who follow at a distance.  Jesus on trial all through the night, and they hide.  At one point Peter is spotted and accused of being one of Jesus’ followers.  He denies it, denies it, denies it.  In the morning, Jesus is sentenced by Pontius Pilate to death on a cross...with the angry crowd shouting:  “Release for us Barabbas, not Jesus!  Crucify Jesus!”  The disciples have really been through a lot...watching frightfully from the nooks and crannies of the city of Jerusalem.  Some of them stood at the foot of the cross, but most of them looked from a distance or perhaps never looked at all.  After Jesus was killed he was put in a garden tomb, a stone rolled in front of the entrance.  Remember?  

Boy those disciples have been through a lot!  And now they’re huddled together in a secret room in the city.  Doors locked.  Confused, scared, sorrowful, alone.  And I’m sure they felt so badly about how they had acted, I’m sure that they were burdened with guilt, how they had just stood by and watched, how they had denied him and ran away, back in that garden, how they could let Jesus receive that sentence, and just listen as the crowds yelled out angrily.  There must have been a lot of quiet in that secret room.  Maybe some blaming going on in their hearts -- “Well, if you hadn’t done this, Peter...”  “Well if you hadn’t done that, Philip!”  They were angry, sad, guilty and afraid. 

And then Jesus appears -- miraculously!  Doors were locked!  He appears...and the first thing he says to them?  “Peace be with you.”  What?!  After everything they had done wrong?  Peace?  But that’s what he said, and he said it again.  (And we now say it every Sunday.)  “Peace be with you” didn’t just mean, “Hey, how’s it going?  Good to see you.  Did you get my voicemail this week?  How’s your ankle doing?”  It means...forgiveness.

After all those nooks and crannies, all that hiding, all that running away, all that denying, betraying, all that just watching -- not saying or doing anything -- just watching from the nooks and crannies of the city...after all of it, Jesus offers peace.  

It’s all about forgiveness.  That’s what it means to live on this side of the resurrection.  
Jesus then breathes on them the Holy Spirit and says, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven, if you retain the sins of any they are retained.”  Now that’s power.  That’s what it means to have Holy Spirit power in John’s Gospel.  This is the Gospel of John’s Pentecost.  It’s not many languages in John -- it’s one language: The language of forgiveness.

This is not just another moral lesson for the Christian life:  it’s the lesson.  Forgiveness.  “Peace be with you,” Jesus says, “It’s OK.  Look, I’m OK.  Touch my hands and my side.  I’m OK.  It’s OK.  Forgive.”  And that forgiveness has to start with forgiving yourself.  It’s OK.

Thomas’ unbelief, I wonder, had more to do with him not believing that he was forgiven, that it was OK.  He needed to see and hear it for himself.  “Jesus said it, Thomas, he said it was OK.  We can come out from the nooks and crannies.  We don’t have to live frightened and quietly and pent up anymore.  We can forgive each other, Thomas.  And Jesus forgives you!”  

After all we’ve been through.  We’ve travelled with Jesus too, we’ve rejoiced with others, waved our palm branches with our lives, sang out Jesus’ name at some moments...only to deny, run in fear, stay silent, even betray him in other moments.  We’ve done our share of watching fearfully and silently from nooks and crannies too...  

And yet, YET, Jesus appears to us too, gathered in fear...if we’re honest.  The front doors of our church are unlocked right now, but how we too live behind locked doors.  Jesus appears to us despite...

And says to us, “Peace.  I’m OK.  So are you.  Now forgive.”

Thomas had to see it for himself.  And so do we.  And so we do.  In this bread and wine, Christ appears, and says to us “Peace.  I’m OK.  So are you.  Now forgive.”  In the Holy Word, Christ appears, and says to us “Peace.  I’m OK.  So are you.  Now forgive.”  In the waters of baptism, Christ appears, and says to us “Peace.  I’m OK.  So are you.  Now forgive.”  And in this community of faith (that our new members join today) -- with all our brokenness and all our blessedness -- Christ appears, and says to us “Peace.  I’m OK.  So are you.  Now forgive.”  AMEN.