EASTER 2, A – March 30, 2008

SCRIPTURES – Ps. 105; Acts 5:29-42; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia! This is not just a greeting for Easter Sunday. These are not just words for one day alone. They are words for every day of our lives, for the truth these words proclaim changes our lives. Christ is risen, indeed! Praise the Lord!

Changed lives are what we see in today’s readings. How different are the apostles in the reading from Acts 5 as compared with how they were in John 20, on that first Easter Sunday. On the day Jesus rises from the dead they are cowering in fear behind locked doors. They are afraid of those who killed Jesus, afraid that they, His followers, will be next. And the next Sunday, even though most of them have seen Jesus triumphant over death and alive again, they remain behind locked doors. Fear has frozen them. In the reading from Acts 5, however, which records events that took place just a few months later, Peter and the apostles are boldly standing before the Jewish leaders and proclaiming Jesus to be the true God and Savior of the people. When they are beaten for proclaiming Him, they rejoice in this and go right back to speaking publicly of Him. How different they are!

What has changed them? What can change us? For, God does not want us to be frightened Christians, people who hide our faith behind the doors of this church and never open our mouths in public to speak of Jesus. We prayed in the Collect of the Day: “Almighty God, grant that we who have celebrated the Lord’s resurrection may by Your grace confess in our life and conversation that Jesus is Lord and God.” What can change us to do this? The same thing that changed the apostles: the gracious presence of the crucified, but now living, Savior with us.

Did you ever wonder: why does Jesus still bear the wounds of His crucifixion after His resurrection? He not only shows them to His disciples on the day He rises; eight days later Jesus encourages Thomas to “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side.” In the book of Revelation, written decades after Easter, John sees Jesus in a vision and says He looks like a Lamb who had been slain (Rev. 5:6). Why do the wounds remain? Because Jesus is, and wants to always be known as, the crucified One. His wounds proclaim what His life was, is, and always will be all about: saving sinners from God’s just condemnation of their sins by taking their sins upon Himself and bearing their punishment Himself. Jesus is the mighty God who is triumphant and rules over sin and every evil – which is what many people think of when they call Him “Lord” – but He wishes to be known as the friend of sinners, the One who comes among them with compassion and forgiveness. That’s the kind of Lord He is. Such a Savior draws sinners to Himself. Such a Savior changes lives. And so, Jesus comes and shows us His wounds.

If you want to have an Easter faith – a faith that overcomes sins and makes you joyful and glad; a faith that gives you confidence in the face of life’s troubles; a faith that comforts you, especially when confronting death or the memory of loved ones who have died; a faith that is a blessing to others; – then seek the wounds of Christ. Easter continues and lives on, bringing forth life, in the wounds of Christ.

Where are these wounds? In memories? In reenactments and Passion plays? Christ wounds, His victory over sin, death, and hell, are given to us in confession and absolution. John tells us:

“Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending 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 anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.”

Jesus died and rose to forgive us and free us from the burden of our sins. He came to His disciples on Easter to forgive them and assure them that He had paid for their sins. “Peace be with you,” He says, speaking His absolution upon them. And then, He sends them forth as the Father had sent Him, to be His presence and His voice of for-giveness. “If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven.” They, His apostles and the first pastors of His Church, would bring His wounds to wounded sinners.

You have heard this voice of Jesus and been brought into His wounds this day. For, you confessed to God your sins, your woundedness, and then heard me say: “As a called and ordained servant of Christ, and by His authority, I forgive you all your sins in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Are these just words? Are they really that important? Even Christ’s absolution doesn’t seem to change the disciples, at least at first. A week after Christ’s resurrection they remain behind locked doors!

These words are not just words. They are God’s words, words commanded by the Son of God Himself. Because they are His words, God the Father honors them. “He remembers his covenant forever, the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations,” Psalm 105 tells us. God commanded and remembers these words, for He sent His Son to save us from our sins. By these words Christ’s wounds, and not your sins, are always before God’s eyes, for they are the fulfillment of His covenant with sinners to be their God and bring them to Himself. For this reason, Luther teaches us in the Small Catechism to say regarding the absolution:

“I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, in particular when they… absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.”

How blessed are you to hear this absolution! Your sins, no matter what they are, are forgiven! You do not need to try to hide them behind the locked doors of your heart – a foolish and useless effort anyway, for no locked door can keep God out. Hide yourself in the wounds of Christ! Confess and receive His forgiveness! Your Savior will receive you and change your life. He will give you His Easter joy and send you forth to show His wounds to others.

This isn’t as hard as it may seem. What did Jesus do on that first Easter? He went to sinners, came in peace, and stood among them as one with them.

I had the privilege of doing this myself last Thursday. I stood with the members of the Norwalk Police Dept. as they buried their colleague and friend, Matt Morelli:

q  I stood with them in the church, and, thankfully, heard the Gospel of forgiveness and eternal life in Jesus proclaimed;

q  I stood with them before his grave and prayed for God’s peace.

Then, that evening, I stood with many of them in O’Neil’s pub in SoNo and had a couple of beers with them. This is evangelism. It doesn’t take a committee or a program or a national movement. It’s just bringing the wounds of Jesus to wounded men and women. Most of my conversations at O’Neil’s were not about Christ, although some were. But, this was an important part of breaking barriers. The officers got to see me, whom they think of as a man of God, also as someone who does not stand apart from them. I don’t cover my ears or chide them when they swear. I don’t avoid their hangouts as places too sinful for me. I don’t, because Jesus doesn’t. Jesus is the friend of sinners. I am to be, also.

Like the disciples after Christ rose, we all need to leave the room and go out into the world engaging it with the Gospel, so that sinners may find eternal healing in Christ’s wounds. For, we have so much! We are in Christ, baptized into His wounds! We have been “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for [us].” Keep immersing yourself in His wounds! He will then make you His Easter presence in this sin-filled world. Your wounded Savior will send you out and use you to bring His wounds to a wounded world, to the glory and honor of His name and the salvation of sinners.