Resurrection Brings , Peace, and Life through Faith —John 20:19-31 Page 1 Second Sunday of Easter Pastor Douglas Punke In the name of the risen c . Amen. Today the Easter proclamation continues for in our text, it is still the third day after Jesus had been crucified. It’s the first day of the week, and the women had gone to the tomb early that morning. They reported some troubling and potentially exciting news. Peter and John confirmed it: the tomb was empty. The burial cloths were neatly folded where Jesus had lain. And then two others who had been on the road to Emmaus also told us they had seen Jesus. Thus today the Easter proclamation continues. Indeed, Easter is too big to be confined to one day. It is a season, a week of Sundays, that we think especially on the resurrection of our Lord. So, it’s the evening of the day of resurrection, and even though the doors are locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus comes and stands in the midst of the disciples. Jesus comes to deliver to the disciples what His passion and death earned: peace. “Peace be with you,” He said, and then He showed the disciples His hands and side. Resurrection brings peace—fears allayed. Though He had died and been buried, Jesus was alive again, just as He had told them would happen, just as the women reported. He said it again, “Peace be with you.” We sing of it in our hymns, “All our debt Thou has paid; Peace with God once more is made: O Lord, have mercy!” Yes, Christ is raised again to bring peace, and that peace is found in the Lord’s mercy, in forgiven. The price of our debt was the blood of God’s own Son. The consequence of our sin was His death. But the resurrection is the joyous sunrise that has visited us from on high, the light that lightens all who sit in the darkness of sin and in the shadow of death; it is the sun that guides our feet into the way of peace. The resurrection is confirmation of mankind’s by the forgiveness of their sins. Thus Jesus sends out His church with this message on their lips: forgive sins as I have forgiven you, and let them know that this forgiveness is found also in . Don’t just tell the people the message foretold in Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms, and now confirmed by the apostles and evangelists, “that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead.” Tell them also “that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name….” Repentance is always in view when we’re talking forgiveness. Thus St. Peter

Resurrection Brings Forgiveness, Peace, and Life through Faith —John 20:19-31 Page 2 Second Sunday of Easter Pastor Douglas Punke preaches not only that “the God of our fathers raised Jesus,” and “exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior,” but also that He did it “to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.” And you remember your catechism explains these words, saying that Jesus’ sends out His church on earth forgiving “the sins of repentant sinners,” but also withholding “forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.” But confessing sins just for the therapeutic reason of “getting them off your chest,” is not the Christian view of things. As Luther says, we go to “for the sake of obtaining the ,” that is, forgiveness. Again, Luther says, “Christ Himself placed His Absolution into the hands of His Christian people with the command that they should absolve one another of their sins.” As St. Paul says, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” Yet this peace which passes all understanding, this peace that comes by the forgiveness of sins, and the “living hope [we have through the knowledge of] the Christ from the dead,” did not leave Thomas with the joy and gladness that Jesus’ resurrection had given the rest of the disciples, and not just because he was not there with the disciples on that resurrection night. The disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord,” but Thomas would not believe. And the text is clear. This is not just doubt—his was unbelief, emphatic unbelief. “I will most assuredly not believe,” he said, “unless I shove my finger into His wounds, my hand into His side.” These were not just misgivings about the resurrection; his words betray a kind of arrogance, an “I know better than you,” arrogance. Jesus simply called it unbelief. Of course, we rejoice that Jesus had mercy upon Thomas. Eight days later, He appeared again to the disciples, and this time Thomas was with them. Jesus again bestows resurrection peace, “Peace be with you.” But then He deals with Thomas’ disbelieving. If you’ll permit me a bit of embellishment on the dialog, Jesus said to Thomas, “Come here, Thomas, and bring your finger with you. Look at my hands. Bring your hand, too, and shove it into my side. Stop your disbelieving; believe.” And thanks be to God, Thomas did. He believed and confessed, “My Lord and my God.” He believed and received the forgiveness that Jesus bestows. He

Resurrection Brings Forgiveness, Peace, and Life through Faith —John 20:19-31 Page 3 Second Sunday of Easter Pastor Douglas Punke believed and was blessed with the peace that Jesus gives from His grace. For that’s what faith is about, and that’s why faith is important, for faith receives the benefits offered by God. Faith doesn’t give or achieve. Faith receives “from [God] those things which He promises and offers.” So it is with respect to the absolution and resulting peace: “Many troubled consciences have derived comfort from our teaching” regarding absolution, says the Apology of the Augsburg Confession. “They have been comforted … [by this] very voice of the , that we should believe the Absolution and regard it as certain that the forgiveness of sins is freely granted to us for Christ’s sake. We should believe that through this faith we are truly reconciled to God.” Of course, we don’t have the advantage of Jesus Himself standing before us, rebuking our disbelief, and converting us back to faithfulness, like Thomas did. But Christ does still come to us today for us, for our forgiveness, for our peace, to strengthen our faith. Oh, He comes today in different ways, hidden ways, hidden in His word preached and absolution spoken by fallible pastors, but a word that says when you hear them, you are hearing Christ, hidden in His word that when attached to water causes “us to be born again to [that] living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” hidden in words joined to bread and wine that bring with them the resurrected Jesus’ body and blood, “this is My body, My blood, given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins.” And you know that where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation. Yes, Jesus does all this—and this is all recorded for your benefit, that as you drink of this pure spiritual milk, you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, that you may confess Him as Lord, that you may believe that God raised Him from the dead, and that by believing this, that you may have life in His name: forgiveness, peace, and life. God grant you this fruit of Jesus’ resurrection, for Christ is risen! Alleluia! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! Alleluia!