Peace to you in Life-Giving Hands.

 

Sermon for Easter Sunday, April 4, 2021

This is the day the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it.  Yes, His mercy endures forever.  Amen.

Dear blessed ones in Christ Jesus,

            They thought they knew Him!  Jesus’ disciples had been following Him for three years!  They had left everything of their former lives and careers to follow Jesus (Matthew 19:27), but for what?  Mixed up in their agony of grief for the execution of the Man they thought was the long-promised Messiah and the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16) came the loss of purpose, and the feeling of betrayal.  If Jesus is the Lord how could He have let these horrible things happen?  How could He not have fought against the authorities?  Had He deceived them?  Was Jesus not who they thought He was?  On the other hand, if He is the Christ, did He die because they failed to help Him when they all ran away at His arrest?

Oh, what a horrible three days those disciples had endured.  Immersed in guilt and grief, and bewildered over the arrest, trial, crucifixion and then death of the One they thought had come from God to reestablish David’s kingdom, the disciples, men and women alike, were also stricken with terror wondering what would happen now that their Leader had been arrested and killed.  Would the Jews who accused Jesus, now come after His disciples?  Would they also be in danger for believing Jesus is God’s Son?  On top of all that, on the first day of the week they had to face the perplexing news that Jesus’ body was missing.  As soon as they heard it, Peter and John had run to the tomb to see for themselves, but what did it mean?  If someone stole the body; why?!  If Jesus is alive, as the women claimed, what retribution would He demand for abandoning Him?

Hindsight is twenty-twenty we so often say.  It’s easy for us to sit here two thousand years later knowing how it all turned out and ask, “How could they not understand?  Why didn’t they have stronger faith?”  But then, the same questions could be asked of us.  Why do we allow people to make us doubt when they deny Jesus is the Christ of God?  Why do so many of us and our children abandon Jesus so soon after they make their confirmation vows?  Why are so many willing to abandon what the Bible says just because the world wants to believe something godless?  How many of us haven’t turned away from Jesus as soon as our trials grew hot?  Are we always as faithful to the Lord as God demands?  In a time of trial, are we willing to face death rather than deny we know Jesus?

If we really examine our own faith, and our own deeds, it’s pretty easy to see how we fall short of what Jesus would call good.  We all must admit that Jesus could just as often say to us, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31)  Thankfully, instead of the judgement we deserve, Jesus brings Peace to you in Life-Giving Hands.

John 20:19-23  ¹⁹On the evening of that first day of the week, the disciples were together behind locked doors because of their fear of the Jews.  Jesus came, stood among them, and said to them, “Peace be with you!”  ²⁰After he said this, he showed them his hands and side.  So the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  ²¹Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you!  Just as the Father has sent me, I am also sending you.”  ²²After saying this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  ²³Whenever you forgive people’s sins, they are forgiven.  Whenever you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (EHV)

A band of disciples gathered, weak in faith, fearful of the enemies, troubled with guilt, confused about the news, when surprisingly Jesus enters the room.  He didn’t come knocking.  He didn’t open the door.  Just suddenly, Jesus came, stood among them, and said to them, “Peace be with you!”  Where was the judgment they deserved?  The anger they might have expected?  Yet, there is none of that in the Savior.  Jesus came to announce to them and to all that peace is now established between all of us sinners and God.  Of course, they were astonished.  Of course, they were unsure.  Was this a ghost, or a hallucination?  Of course, they still had to be questioning how could this be? 

Every sceptic would demand proof.  Therefore, Jesus immediately “showed them his hands and side.”  At that point, who could doubt that this truly is Jesus, the Teacher with whom they had walked for three years—the Miracle Worker they had seen feed thousands out of next to nothing—the Man who walked on water and changed water into wine—the Great Physician who had healed every broken or sick person who pleaded for help, and who had raised from the dead a little girl, a widow’s son, and Lazarus.  Of course, now it made sense.  Jesus is exactly who He and the Father had claimed Him to be.  Therefore, resurrected from the grave, Jesus came,… and said to them, “Peace be with you!” 

But why?  Because the world needed peace between God and men.  That was Jesus’ mission just as the angels had announced the night of His birth.  The light was finally coming on in the disciples’ minds.  They remembered that Jesus had told them He would suffer and die and be raised on the third day.  They remembered that He came to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.

Old Testament law demanded that to be valid testimony, two or three witnesses had to agree in their witnessing.  Here on Easter Sunday, we have ten eyewitnesses who each saw Jesus, face to face, who each could touch the hands that had been nailed to the tree, to put their hands into His side that had been rent by a Roman soldier’s piercing spear.  “So the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”  Ten men would leave that room boldly testifying that they had seen Jesus, not a dead body, not a mirage, but the real, living Savior of the world.

What does this mean for you and me?  If Jesus didn’t stop into that room to condemn His disciples who had abandoned and betrayed Him, He will also have mercy for us.  If Jesus didn’t stay dead but truly rose from the grave, every promise of the Scriptures is true, and that means that all of us who believe in Him have our sins forgiven, because “God made him, who did not know sin, to become sin for us,” (2 Corinthians 5:21) and the Bible promises, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For in Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:1-2)  God had long ago declared, “The soul who sins is the one who will die.” (Ezekiel 18:20)  However, because Jesus took our sins, that law no longer reigns over us.  Jesus conquered sin and death by living and dying in our place, then rising from the grave just as He had foretold.  And, because Jesus lives, we too will live forever. (John 14:19)

“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you!  Just as the Father has sent me, I am also sending you.’”  Some three years earlier, Jesus had chosen those men for this very purpose: that they would be His witnesses to the world of everything He had done and still does, so that we may enjoy His victory over sin and the devil, and therefore have victory over death.

Some of the direst weaknesses we face are the same ones that troubled Jesus’ disciples until He rose from the dead.  Just like them, we struggle with guilt.  We struggle with worry and fear.  We struggle to see how everything the Bible says can be true.  We struggle to see beyond what is happening in our physical presence, so if we don’t see it right now, we struggle to believe it.  That is why we need faith and why we need the Holy Spirit to give us that faith, because at this time, we can’t see into heaven any other way.  Yet, Jesus promises, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)

Today, the Holy Spirit works through the testimonies of those who did see it all with their own eyes.  They saw Jesus arrested, saw Him nailed to the cross, saw the horrible abuse He suffered, saw Him dead then laid in a tomb after the soldier made sure He was dead.  Yet, after all of that, after their uncertainty and fear, they saw Jesus live!  They experienced the victory firsthand, and by the testimony of those eyewitnesses, the Holy Spirit works faith in Christ in everyone who believes.

Of course, we live in a skeptical world that really wants to go its own way—a way, however, that leads to destruction.  Many today refuse to believe those ten disciples who say they saw Jesus alive, resurrected from the grave.  To the skeptic, we can boldly say that there are more—many more who saw Jesus alive after He had been dead.  Paul reports more than five hundred eyewitnesses saw Jesus at one time. (1 Corinthians 15:6)  In fact, Paul himself could be considered a hostile witness, because at one point He hated Jesus and tried to destroy anyone who confessed faith in Him, but Paul met Jesus alive on the road to Damascus, and Paul became a changed man. (Acts 9:3-5)

But, all of this together isn’t given to us just to win arguments with worldly people.  It is, instead, given to us so that we might have true peace.  “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you!  Just as the Father has sent me, I am also sending you.’  After saying this, he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.  Whenever you forgive people’s sins, they are forgiven.  Whenever you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’”  Jesus bore the sins of the world, paid their price in full, and after reconciling the world to His Father in heaven, (2 Corinthians 5:19) He wants you to know, without any doubt at all, that you are forgiven of every and any sin.  The slate has been wiped clean and where there is no sin there is now no condemnation for there is peace with God.

Jesus wants you to know that it is because the Father loved the world enough to send His Son to die for you that He went to the cross to suffer for your guilt.  He didn’t do it so that you would have to pay later; Jesus did it so that you never have to pay at all.  Having wiped all sin from God’s memory forever, there is no more retribution necessary or planned for you or anyone else.  There is no reason for anyone ever to be punished in eternity. 

At the same time, Jesus charges us that we must warn anyone who foolishly refuses the loving grace God offers for without faith in Christ Jesus no one could be saved.  Every day until this world ends in a fiery destruction, Jesus stands before His Father in heaven offering and pleading for peace to you.

Dear friends, your sins are forgiven for Jesus’ sake.  That is the message of Easter.  The resurrection is living proof that Jesus has conquered sin, death, and the devil on your behalf, so that you may enjoy peace with God and life everlasting in heaven.  Believing that Good News is truly the gift of the Holy Spirit.  “The promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far away, as many as the Lord our God will call.” (Acts 2:39)  Give thanks that through Jesus, there is Peace to you in Life-Giving Hands.  Amen.

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and in His grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and establish you in every good work and word.  Amen.