How Dare We?

[Below you'll find live stream video of the Sunday worship services from Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. You'll also find the prepared message for the services.]





John 20:19-31

When some people attend Lutheran worship services for the first time, they’re horrified when the pastor turns to the congregation and says, “As a called and ordained minister of the Church of Christ, and by His authority, I…declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins…”

They’re even more horrified when they hear a pastor during, say, Maundy Thursday worship, “In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins.”

Who do these pastors think they are, forgiving people their sins?

These folks would be even more horrified to learn that Jesus teaches that it’s both the right and mission of every Christian to declare God’s forgiveness of sin.

It’s possible that, although we should know better, a part of us may recoil at this radical notion.

We may feel like the scribes who heard Jesus tell the paralytic on a mat that his sins were forgiven: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7)

Of course, the scribes failed to acknowledge that Jesus is God. But their question still is valid: Who can forgive sins but God alone?

The answer, of course, is no mere human being who isn’t also God.

That’s because our sinful nature and every sin we commit is mainly, an affront to God. That’s not just true when we fail to honor God as God, or honor His name, or regularly worship Him. It’s also true when we dishonor our elders or those in positions of leadership, insult, mistreat, or otherwise assassinate other human beings, misuse the gift of sexual intimacy meant for husband and wife alone, steal, or covet.

It is God we violate when we sin in thought, word, or action. All of our sins, even when they involve hurting or violating others, are against God Himself.

So, who are we Christian saints, who are also sinners, to forgive people for their sins?

Jesus answers that question in today’s Gospel lesson, John 20:19-31. It begins: “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders…”

One correction of our translation: In the original Greek, John, the writer of our lesson, says the disciples were afraid of the Ἰουδαίων, the Judeans, the Jews.

The disciples were afraid of their fellow Jews, not just the Jewish leaders.

We can understand why.

Disappointed that Jesus hadn’t turned out to be the political king they wanted Him to be, their fellow Jews had called for the Gentile execution of Jesus.

The disciples understandably feared that, as people associated with Jesus, they might be hunted down, turned over to the Romans, and crucified too.

But there was another Jew the disciples were afraid of: Jesus.

If the reports of Jesus’ resurrection given to them by the women that first Easter Sunday morning were true, what might Jesus do to them?

They all had betrayed, denied, and abandoned Jesus, turned away from the One they’d once confessed as Messiah and God the Son. Jesus would have been within His rights to punish them.

And so, here are the disciples, huddled under the condemnation of God’s Law they all felt, locked in a room from which they hoped to keep out both the Jews they feared would kill them and the King of the Jews they feared would damn them.

A locked door though, isn’t much defense against the invasion of the sovereign God of the universe. John says: “Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’” (John 20:19)

Jesus declares to these sinful disciples–and to you and me, who have also sinned against Him, God the Son, Shalom!

Shalom is more than peace.

Shalom is reconciliation with God, the forgiveness of God, oneness with God, and all of God’s creation! Jesus punctures the condemnation and darkness of our sin to give us peace with God.

He can do this because He has taken our sin to Himself and killed it off on the cross. Jesus shows us that what He told Nicodemus is meant for us too: “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17)

In the locked room, Jesus proclaims forgiveness–absolution–to sinners: “Through Me, all your sins are forgiven.”

The disciples who are present at this moment don’t believe at first. It isn’t Jesus’ resurrection they disbelieve. They can see the risen Jesus before them. What they can’t believe is that they are absolved of, forgiven for, their sins.

We know this because the disciples aren’t overjoyed to see the Lord until after He has done something. “He showed them his hands and side.” (John 20:20)

This brings the disciples joy because they now understand why Jesus had suffered and died. The scars caused by nails and spear were put there by their sins–put there by our sins. Jesus carried our sins to the cross, where they were executed.

Our sins are no longer on us, but on Jesus Christ. Unless we insist on holding onto them and refuse Jesus’ hard-won forgiveness for us, our sins can no more condemn us.

God forgives you all your sins, friends, for the sake of Jesus Christ.

It’s here that Jesus again speaks His Word of shalom to the disciples, then tells them that He is sending all who are part of His Church into the world, just as the Father once sent Him. After filling them with new life by breathing the Holy Spirit onto the disciples–the same Spirit we receive when we are baptized–Jesus tells the disciples: “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (John 20:23)

Not just to pastors, but to every Christian, then, Jesus gives what we call “the office of the keys.”

We wield the keys to the Kingdom of God, which isn’t unlocked by human good works or our supposed goodness, but because in Jesus, our sins are totally, completely, irrevocably forgiven.

And notice, Jesus doesn’t say, “Declare forgiveness only to the repentant.” Just as Jesus declared His forgiveness to the disciples before they’d uttered a word of repentance, Jesus has already forgiven our sins and the sins of the whole world.

People may not believe they are forgiven and spurn God’s forgiveness.

They may not believe in the Savior Who has won their forgiveness and spurn everlasting life with God.

But Jesus is, as John the Baptist described Jesus, “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)

Jesus has already completed His saving work for us on the cross!

Jesus tells disciples, including we in the twenty-first century, “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them their sins, they are not forgiven.”

By the authority given to us by Jesus, our task as the Church is to tell people, in one way or another, “In the name of Jesus Christ, all your sins are forgiven.” We are to deliver God’s peace to others, just as Chrirst has delivered it to us without condition. Jesus didn’t wait to do His saving work for us before we got our acts together or came to Him begging for forgiveness. As the apostle Paul writes: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

The late Lutheran pastor and theologian Jim Nestingen asserted that people we meet every day, whether they’re conscious of it or not, desperately crave the forgiveness and peace with God Jesus has already won for them through His death and resurrection. Nestingen would be on a plane and the person next to him would ask what he did for a living. When Nestingen told them, they might say things like, “I’ve never been very religious,” or, “If I ever went to church, the roof would fall in.” At statements like these, which he rightly saw as confessions of sin, Nestingen would tell them, “In the name of Jesus Christ, all your sins are forgiven.” Jim told those people that Jesus had borne their sins and had sent Jim, just as He sends you every day to the people you know and meet, to bring them the forgiveness and peace of God.

Jim declared God’s peace and forgiveness to hundreds of people in just the same way over the course of his life.

When we declare God’s forgiveness and peace to others, some will come to faith in Christ. Others won’t. Some of them may later. But whatever others’ reactions to the absolution through Christ we declare to people, we will have the joy of doing what Jesus has empowered us to do.

Friends, in the name of Jesus Christ, all your sins are forgiven.

Now, even if it’s a family member you had an argument with on the way to church this morning, turn and say the same thing to the person next to you, “In the name of Jesus Christ, all your sins are forgiven.” I’ll wait for you.

How dare we do that?

Because having made peace with us through His cross and resurrection, that’s exactly what Jesus has called us to do.

Amen

The Work, the Mission, the Power, and the Model

[This past Sunday, I was privileged to lead worship and preach at the non-denominational Emma Anderson Memorial Chapel in Topsail, North Carolina. As they do with guest pastors fifty Sundays a year, the people of the chapel provided my family and me with a parsonage-by-the-sea, an opportunity to rest and recharge our batteries, and incredible hospitality!]

EMMA Anderson Sunday Worship Service from Emma Anderson Memorial Chapel on Vimeo.

John 20:19-31

Today, in light of the Bible lesson, I want to talk with you about four things: the work, the mission, the power, and the model.

The lesson opens with Jesus’ disciples huddled in a locked room on the first Easter evening. The doors are locked because they’re afraid of their fellow Jews, afraid that, like their Lord and teacher, they might become targets for rejection, arrest, torture, and death.

Now, the disciples had heard the report of some of the women of their group that Jesus was risen and alive. John’s gospel tells us that John himself had hurried to the tomb in that foot race with Peter and, as a consequence, believed the women’s words. But most of the disciples seem to have concluded that, even if the reports were true, they had no idea of whether, if they were crucified like Jesus, they would also rise again. Besides, because we’re all averse to pain, they surely don’t want to be crucified even if they are going to be raised again!

Some have suggested that on that first Easter evening, the disciples may have had another fear. Namely, if Jesus really was risen, what would He do or say to them after they had scattered and abandoned Him the second He was arrested?

Amid this scene of fear and uncertainty, the risen Jesus, no longer constrained by time or space, appears in that locked room and says, “Peace be with you!” These are more than the words of a well-wisher. Jesus is God the Son and when God speaks, things happen. When, at the creation of this universe, God said, “Let there be light,” there was light. God said through the prophet Isaiah: “My Word will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire...” (Isaiah 55:11) So, in pronouncing peace on the disciples, Jesus isn’t just wishing them His peace, He’s giving them peace.

When Jesus talks about peace, He’s not telling the disciples that their lives on earth will be a smooth ride and they’ll never know conflict and they’ll always get what they want. To have Jesus’ peace is to have a right relationship with God, our sins are forgiven, and we have life with God, both here in this imperfect world and in perfection in life beyond the grave.

And this brings us to our first word; work. Peace with God is not something we can work for or attain. Peace is God’s gift to us through Jesus. Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God...”

When Jesus said from the cross, “It is finished,” He meant it. Everything necessary for the forgiveness of your sins and for everlasting life with God has already been accomplished by Jesus. He took the death sentence for sin we deserve. He rose again to open up your never-ending life with God. True peace is God’s work and God’s gift to us through Jesus. I hope that’s as big a relief to you as it is to me!

The Bible teaches that we are born in sin. That is, we have a sinful nature that leads us to commit individual sins. Our sin is a serious matter. The Bible is unblinking in saying the rightful punishment for our sinful nature is separation from God, eternal chaos and condemnation rather than peace. That’s why Jesus’ work from the cross and tomb is so amazing and wonderful! With the apostle Paul, we can say: “Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25) Thank God for the finished work of Jesus Christ for us!

After giving His disciples His peace, Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” (John 20:21) This is a remarkable thing! Jesus was sent into our fallen world by God the Father to do the work of our salvation. Now, Jesus says, He’s sending His disciples, including you and me, into the world. He does because He has a particular calling for us: We’re to share the good news of new and everlasting life for all who believe in Jesus and the work He’s already accomplished for every human being. Giving others the Word of new and everlasting life for sinful people who trust in Jesus is our mission. This, of course, is called the great commission, the mission Jesus gives the Church and individual Christians: to be and make disciples, sharing what Jesus has done to save us from sin and death to give us His peace! He describes that mission in today’s lesson as declaring God’s forgiveness to repentant believers in Jesus and withholding God’s forgiveness from those who refuse to trust in Jesus.

I’m convinced that more people are open to our mission from Christ than we Christians often realize. Part of my personal mission field is the deli of a Kroger grocery stor near me. I’ve gotten to know some of the employees and there’s one man in particular that our church has been able to help in the past. A few weeks ago, I was at the deli counter again. While another employee waited on me, this man we’ll call Bill wrote a note for me on the back of a deli order form. In large letters, he wrote, “Please! Please pray for my son!” I looked at him after reading his note. I could see how much he wanted God in his son’s life circumstances. You and I are surrounded by people like Bill who need Christian disciples who will pursue the mission Jesus has given to us of sharing the Gospel with everyone!

Of course, if we try to do our mission on the basis of our own sparkling personalities, we won’t get done what Jesus has sent us to get done. That’s why after Jesus had given the disciples–all disciples, including you and me–His mission, John says, “with that [Jesus] breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” (John 20:22) This brings us to our third word for the morning. After Jesus has done all the work for us to know God’s peace and after He gives us our mission, He gives us the power to fulfill that mission. He gives us the Holy Spirit!

Jesus says elsewhere in John’s gospel, “apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) We Christians often forget this. When I was a seminary student, our spiritual and academic progress was assessed annually by a committee that included laypeople, professors, and classmates. In preparation for these evaluations, we had to write essays in response to a series of questions. I’m embarrassed to say that in my first year, I began one essay with these  words, “I have great confidence in my potential for being a good pastor.” I was rightly called out for arrogance! No Christian and no Christian pastor will ever fulfill Christ’s mission for them by their own “potential” or abilities. That’s why Jesus gives the Holy Spirit to every believer. Jesus promised this to His disciples before His crucifixion: “I  will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth.” (John 14:16-17) If you can say that Jesus is your Lord, you can be assured that Jesus has given you the Holy Spirit. God’s power for fulfilling His mission for you is in you!

The last part of our lesson is well known to you. It takes place one week after the resurrection. Thomas, who hadn’t been in the locked room when the risen Jesus appeared, had refused to believe that Jesus was risen. But Jesus didn’t give up on Thomas, any more than He gives up on us when we stubbornly refuse to trust Him or when we violate His will. Jesus appears to Thomas and the other disciples. Jesus invites Thomas to touch His wounds. Then Jesus tells Thomas, literally, in John 20:27, “Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” At this, the formerly unbelieving Thomas calls Jesus, “My Lord and my God.” (John 1:28) Here, Jesus becomes our model for pursuing our mission. Jesus doesn’t upbraid Thomas. He doesn’t criticize Thomas’ lack of faith. Instead, He calls Thomas to believe in Him and so to know the peace of God. Would Thomas have come to believe in Jesus had Jesus not been patient with Thomas? As a former atheist, I can tell you that it was the patient, loving witness of Christians who shared Christ and His Gospel with me that brought me to being able to say of Jesus, “My Lord and my God!”

Often today, it seems that Christians treat their unbelieving neighbors as enemies. But the Bible tells us that our real enemies aren’t other people. Our enemies are the devil and the spiritual forces of darkness who imprison people in unbelief and sin. Our neighbors are people who, just like us, need the peace Jesus has secured through His death and resurrection. This is why 1 Peter tells us: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…” (1 Peter 3:15) For this, friends, Jesus is our model.

So, four words for us to consider today. The work for our peace with God, others, and ourselves, which has already been completed by Jesus; the mission Jesus gives to share that peace; the power Jesus gives us to fulfill our mission by sending the Holy Spirit; and the model Jesus has given us for pursuing our mission with gentleness and respect. May Jesus bless and guide you as you and this remarkable fellowship of believers follow Him and lift Him up to this community and world. Amen

 

My Lord and My God (Sunday Worship, Living Water Lutheran Church)

Here's Sunday worship from Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Below the video is the manuscript for today's message. God bless you!



John 20:19-31
One day during seventh-grade English class, our teacher, Mrs. Biggs, told us that we were going to have a say in what book we would read together over the next six weeks. 

She gave us three choices. I can’t remember what the other two were. But I do remember the one I definitely didn’t want to read: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 

I thought I would be bored out of my skull if we read that book. But the vote for the Holmes stories was nearly unanimous. 

Then I read the stories and got hooked. I read all twelve in the collection even before we were actually supposed to be reading them for class. I loved them for the puzzles they presented, the vivid characters, the strange plot twists, and the friendship of the brilliant Holmes and the sometimes clueless Watson. I couldn’t stop talking about the stories. And for Christmas that year, I received the complete Holmes collection: all fifty-six short stories and four novels. I still have that book!

Have you ever noticed how skeptics can become the biggest fans of something they once disdained? And it’s often these people who have what’s called “the zeal of a convert.” It’s often former skeptics who tell us the most about the things they once dismissed but have come to love.

Our gospel lesson for today, John 20:19-31, gives us a portrait of such a person. His name is Thomas. He was called to be an apostle of Jesus, one of the twelve Jesus would send into the world to witness that all who believe in the crucified and risen Savior will have eternal life with God and plant Christ's Church everywhere.

At the beginning of his gospel, John introduces us to Jesus, the Second Person of the Triune God, the one God in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Jesus, John said, is the Word, God the Son, Who spoke the universe into being. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” John says (John 1:1). 

Later in that same chapter, he says, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) 

John spends the rest of his gospel recounting signs, sermons, and dialogs pointing out to those who dared to pay attention that Jesus was no ordinary man. They all demonstrated that Jesus was more even than the Messiah, the Christ, who God’s people had long-awaited. Jesus was God the Son in the flesh, the Creator becoming one of His creatures so that in His sinlessness, He could die for sinners and win eternity for all who believed in Him, their sins forgiven, made forever new.

Now, Thomas was with Jesus throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry. He knew that there was something special about Jesus. That’s probably why he kept following Jesus. But he refused to give in to the enthusiasm of faith. (The word enthusiasm comes from the Greek phrase, en Theos, in God.) 

Thomas held back, determined not to get hoodwinked into giving his loyalty to anyone. Not even Jesus. 

Thomas was there to see Jesus bring sight to the blind man who, when Jesus identified Himself as the Son of Man had told Jesus, “Lord, I believe” and proceeded to worship Jesus as God (John 9:38). But while others exhibited faith in and devotion to Jesus, however imperfect, Thomas folded his arms. 

When Jesus announced His intention to go to Bethany after His friend Lazarus had died there, Thomas was less than enthusiastic. Bethany was in the heart of the territory from which Jesus and the twelve had just run for their lives. At Jesus’ announcement, Lazarus cynically told the others, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” (John 11:16) 

Even at the Last Supper, after Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead and after Thomas had heard Jesus speak repeatedly of how He was going to Jerusalem where God the Father would glorify Him, through His death, resurrection, and ascension, Thomas asks Jesus, Who had told the disciples that they knew the Way He was going, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (John 14:5) 

When Jesus told Thomas, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” Thomas remained immune to Jesus’ Word (John 14:6).

After Jesus’ died and all hope of His being the Messiah seemed gone, the other disciples, grief-stricken and disappointed, nonetheless stayed together, probably drawing comfort from one another. Not Thomas. He was nowhere to be found on Easter Sunday morning. He had moved on. 

Nor was he around on Easter Sunday evening when Jesus entered a locked room to greet the disciples and show them that He had conquered sin, death, and the grave for all who believe in Him. When, a week later, Thomas was told about several encounters Jesus’ other disciples had with Jesus raised from the dead, Thomas refused to believe.

I have a confession to make. 

I can sometimes be a Thomas. 

I live on the Easter side of Jesus’ time on earth. 

I believe in Him as my Lord and King. 

But sometimes I act and live as though the Word never became flesh and dwelt among us, that He never died to destroy the power of sin and death over me, that He didn’t rise to make me a new creature to whom He wills an eternity of good. 

I can wake up and go through the next sixteen hours of my day like someone who never heard of Jesus. I can live like Jesus never died and rose for me. Like those who don’t know Jesus, I can stew over how things are going to turn out, forgetting that the Lord Who was raised by God the Father on Easter has believers and our ultimate destination in His strong grip, that Jesus has prepared a place for us with God in eternity and He will be with us every step of the way on this earth. 

How about you? 

Can you be a Thomas? 

Do you sometimes let unbelief, cynicism, skepticism, selfishness, or a kind of thoughtless, default atheism setting cloud your vision of Jesus, of Who He is, and of what He has done for you on the cross and from the empty tomb?

Today brings you (and me) good news! 

Like John, the beloved disciple, who saw the empty tomb on the first Easter Sunday morning and believed, Thomas got his chance to see the risen Jesus on the following Sunday. 

And when that happened, Thomas, the hardened skeptic, became the only person in the Gospel of John to make this ringing confession about Jesus: “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). 

No one had previously dared to say Who Jesus was (and is). 

Thomas confessed Jesus not just our Lord. Not just the Lord Who conquered sin and death and Satan. 

Thomas looked at Jesus and declared Jesus to be God! 

Jesus says of believers like you and me, who have received the Word about Jesus that would be shared by the lives and martyrdom of witnesses like Thomas, Peter, John, Mary Magdalene, and Paul, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)

We are blessed. 

Although like Thomas, we can doubt or be disbelieving or forgetful, we are blessed. 

That’s because the truth of our faith in Christ is not measured either in how often we allow our human nature to get in the way of trusting in Jesus. It isn't measured in our imperfections. 

Our faith is truly seen in this: in how, when confronted by Jesus in His Word, in the Sacraments, and in the fellowship of the Church, we realize again that this Jesus, this One raised from the grave on the first Easter, is Lord and God and His Word has transformed us from sinners dead in their trespasses and given us the saving faith to say with Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”

Friends, Jesus never tires of coming to us and always remains the Word made flesh, true God and true man, Whose desire above all else is to fellowship with us and make us His forever. 

May we who, by the power of God's Word about Jesus, give us the zeal of converts, people who sold out to Jesus that we can't keep from telling the world about Jesus and His gospel.

And when Jesus calls us, may we always hear His voice and may we always come to Him, our Lord and our God. Amen