The Word gives the power to believe

Sermon for Easter 1 – Quasimodogeniti

1 John 5:4-10  +  John 20:19-31

As St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty…If Christ is not risen, then your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, then we are the most pitiable of all men.

“Pitiable” sort of summarizes the state of the Eleven apostles on Easter Sunday afternoon. They had heard from the women about the empty tomb. Some of them had seen it with their own eyes. John, we’re told, believed when he saw it. But the rest—no, that strained credulity too far. They were pitiable, huddled together in that upper room in fear of the Jews. If they could manage to get Jesus killed, famous as He was, powerful as He was, what hope did they have? No, they had no time to think about this supposed resurrection of Jesus. They were too busy worrying, too busy being afraid of the Jews, afraid of earthly trouble and danger. Afraid of death. Those same fears plague our entire race. And there’s another fear, too, that should plague our race, but most people don’t give it any thought anymore. People should be afraid of the devil, and afraid of the God who has the power to destroy both body and soul in hell, especially if Christ is not risen, because then there is no hope for sinners. You are still in your sins, Paul says.

But Jesus the Christ is risen from the dead. And He showed Himself openly to His disciples for the first time on that Easter Sunday evening, in the upper room where they were hiding. When they saw Him alive after being crucified, dead, and buried, they believed in Him again, and they rejoiced.

And they had good reason to rejoice. Peace be with you, Jesus said to them. They surely didn’t have time, right at that moment, to contemplate all that that greeting entails. But we can! They had stumbled on Maundy Thursday night. They had kept stumbling through the weekend and were stumbling still by not believing the women’s report. They were sinners and lawbreakers and men who did not deserve to sit at the table with Jesus in His heavenly kingdom. But He spoke peace to them.

He spoke it to you just this morning, too, through the one whom He has sent. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. As the Father had sent Jesus, so He sent His apostles. And the Christian Church founded upon those apostles has been sending men ever since, in the name of Jesus, to speak the Word of Jesus, to speak the peace of Jesus. Peace with God. Peace, and not war. Peace in the forgiveness of sins which He won for all people on the cross and which He now pronounces upon all who repent and believe in Him.

Only He pronounces it through His Holy Spirit, that is, through the ministry of the Word. As my Father has sent me, so I also send 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, their sins are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. With the authority of Jesus, ministers who have been called by God, through the Church, actually forgive sins to the penitent. How do you know that a minister’s forgiveness is God’s forgiveness? Because Jesus said so.

This is, by the way, why ordination is so important—that public rite by which a man is set apart for the office of the ministry. It serves as a public testimony by the Church that the man who is being installed as a pastor has the authority that Christ gave to His apostles. It’s the Church’s testimony that this man’s forgiveness (pronounced in God’s name and according to God’s command) is God’s forgiveness, and his retaining of sins is God’s retaining. And you are to believe it, just as firmly as you believe that Christ is risen from the dead. Because the same apostles who were witnesses of Christ’s resurrection are witnesses of His Word granting this authority to the Church.

But what if someone will not believe the Word recorded by the Apostles and pronounced by the minister?

Well, Thomas wouldn’t believe, either—wouldn’t believe until he saw, until he touched the body of Jesus with his hands. If he couldn’t do that, then the resurrection of Jesus wouldn’t be real, in his mind. It would just be a fable, a tall tale, the wishful thinking of pitiable men.

But then Jesus appeared again, a week later, and allowed Thomas to see Him and to touch Him. And then He spoke powerful words, Spirit-filled words, words that are able to cut through all the unbelief of man: Do not be unbelieving any longer, but believing. And then, Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.

How is it possible? If it took a visible, tangible proof for even the apostles to believe, how can anyone possibly believe in the risen Christ without seeing—believe that He did truly rise from the dead, that He is the Christ, the Son of God, that He truly made atonement for all our sins and now truly forgives all who look to Him in faith through the mouth of a humble preacher?

It’s very simple. St. John tells us plainly: These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, by believing, you may have life in his name.

But it’s just writing. It’s just a book, this “Bible thing.” And people will tell you, it’s just like any other book, a work of fiction, not dependable, not reliable, and certainly not true. In fact, what is truth?, as Pilate famously asked. But you know better. You know that the Scriptures of the prophets and apostles are true, that is, they agree with reality. And how do you know that? Because these words have power. Divine power. The Spirit’s power, the Father’s drawing, pushing, prodding, coaxing you to do what otherwise would be impossible, to believe in that Man who lived so long ago, who lived and died, and who was witnessed as risen from the dead, that Man whom you have never met in person, but whose word and reputation are so convincing that millions have believed, based only on the things that were written by John and the other apostles and prophets, and preached by their successors, and passed on by countless Christians, parents to children, children to parents, friends to friends, strangers to strangers, and so on and on and on.

Believe in that Man. Put all your hope in that Man. Because one day you will see Him, too, just as Thomas did. All men will see Him. And all who have believed, all who have been born of God, who have already been victorious over the world by faith, will sit down with that Man, Jesus Christ, at a feast that will never end. Amen.