Easter 2 – 2015 John 20:19-31 Kerygma

We are Lutherans. Or at least this is a Lutheran Church. Talk about stating the obvious on the Second Sunday of the Easter season!

And being Lutheran makes us a part of the protestant movement of the Christian church around the world. We are like many other protestant churches in many ways. But we are also unique. Lutherans are radical in our belief that God saves us not by any works we do but purely and completely by grace, through faith in

Jesus Christ. No matter how you slice and dice other protestant faiths, there is always just a little bit, or a whole lot of works righteousness mixed in – you have to “do” something – even if it is just you have to believe. We profess that even belief is a gift of God through the work of the !

Justification by grace through faith is a basic tenet of who we are as Lutherans. But there is a second important manifestation of this unique Lutheran faith, and that is our understanding of the Bible and of scripture and it purpose and use. Though we understand the Bible to be the first and primary source of the knowledge of God, we do not

1 worship the Bible. Though we understand the Bible to be Holy, we do not idolize the Bible. Though we understand the bible to be our guide and norm, we do not use the Bible as a cookbook – got a problem? Look up the answer in the Bible! No, we don’t do that!

And it isn’t the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, or some other modern manifestation of the church that declares this.

How we understand the Bible goes back to Martin Luther himself.

Luther said that “The Holy Scriptures are the source and norm of the knowledge of God’s revelation which concerns the Christian faith.”

But then he quickly adds “ The ultimate authority of Christian theology is not the biblical canon as such, but the of Jesus

Christ to which the Scriptures bear witness – the “canon within the canon.” Jesus Christ himself is the Lord of the Scriptures, the source and scope of its authority.

The gospel of John speaks of Jesus as the logos, the word made flesh. And it is this word, this living Christ, which is the source and reason for the Bible. And it is the source and reason for this reading

2 from John’s gospel this morning – the account of doubting Thomas.

After the encounter between Thomas and the risen Lord, in words that are often overlooked as we preachers rush to talk about the ups and downs of doubt, John gives us this instruction concerning the Bible:

“Now 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 come to believe that Jesus is the , the Son of

God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” It wasn’t Luther who “invented” this idea of the living Christ being found in the Bible. It is Scripture itself that instructs us concerning its proper use.

“Luther’s departure from the traditional thoughts of the day consisted in deriving the authority of Scripture from its gospel content. is a promise; therefore the bible is a book of promises that circulated first in the Word of preaching. The living

Word of preaching is the basic form of the gospel. The scriptures are the written form which became a necessary aid in the ongoing oral proclamation of the church.

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For Luther, the preaching of the word was the primary form of the gospel. ‘The fact that it became necessary to write books reveals that great damage and injury had already been done to the Spirit.

Books were thus written out of necessity and not because this is the nature of the ’ he said . The heart of scripture is the promise of the gospel that is brought to expression in the events of

Easter – the life, death and .

The Bible is not a book of legal doctrines, inerrant reports, or devotional materials. The Bible conveys the life-giving Word of salvation in Christ to those who accept it through faith.

Though we hear and I have often preached on “doubting

Thomas” on this second Sunday of Easter – it is important to understand the larger message of John. “Have you believed because you have seen me?” asks Jesus. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” John and his community are concerned with us – with you and me! Blessed are those who have faith but have not seen. These are hard words. When even the people who were there to hear Jesus preach and teach, when they have

4 trouble understanding and believing what happened – John must wonder how future generations could possibly understand and believe such a strange and glorious thing. And so he tells us, outright, “these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

So what are you saying this morning Pastor Shirley? It sounds like a lot of theological gobildy gook.

Perhaps the best way to summarize is to ask a catechetical question: why read the bible? John gives us a clue. We do not read because we are going to find abundant life in that book, as Jesus pointed out earlier. The bible is not an answer book, nor is it a treasure chest of quotations letting us in on the secrets of the good life.

We read the bible because the Bible contains a collection of reports from those who had met Jesus firsthand. These reports point us to that person – called Messiah, Son of God – and promise that through him, we will find the sort of life we would all like to live. All of us have, in a sense, come to Jesus through hearing rather than through seeing. All

5 of us believe on the basis of the reports of the apostles in writings like the Gospel of John.

“We may try to say that the story of the Resurrection means the teachings of Jesus are immortal like the plays of Shakespeare or the music of Beethoven. Or we can say that the Resurrection means the spirit of Jesus is undying, that he lives the way Socrates does in the good he left behind. Or we can say the language of the is the language of poetry and that it is not to be taken literally but as point to a truth more profound than the literal. We try to reduce it to the coming of spring, or the rebirth of hope in a despairing soul. We try to suggest that these are the miracles of the Resurrection, but they are not. They are all miracles, but they are not this miracle. The resurrection is proclaimed. It is proclaimed as fact: Christ is risen!

Unless something very real took place, there would be no church, no

Christianity. And I believe that even without the Bible, God would have found a way to help each and every one of us know about this great deed.

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But in the Bible we get the whole sweeping story and it is and will always be the inspiration for our preaching, teaching and worship.

Amen.

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