The Call to Reach Out (Part 5, Reach Up, Reach In, Reach Out Lenten Series)

[This was shared during Wednesday night's midweek Lenten devotional worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]



Matthew 28:19-20

We come this evening to the last installment of our Lenten series, “Reach up. Reach in. Reach out.”

We consider what some see as the most difficult and distasteful aspect of the Christian life: reaching out to others with the gospel–the good news–that, in Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, God has broken human imprisonment to sin and death and opened eternity to all people.

As people who have been gifted with saving faith in Jesus through the Word and the Sacraments, our call is to give away that gift to all people.

In doing so, we echo Jesus’ words at the beginning of His ministry: “Repent [that is, turn away from sin and death] and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15) 

Of course, the call to reach out is in Jesus’ great commission. As mentioned during our first midweek gathering this year, Jesus is cited as giving the great commission in five different places in the New Testament.

One of those places, Matthew 28:19-20, is the mission statement of Living Water Lutheran Church: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

We can see both God’s Law and God’s Gospel in Jesus’ words here. 

The Law here in the great commission is: “Church, I command you to make disciples of all peoples.”

As is always true of God’s Law, what Jesus commands here is impossible for us.

Reaching out to others to give them the free gift of God’s grace in Christ is foreign to our sinful natures. The first thing we want to do when we get a gift is hoard it, keeping it to ourselves. This was why God had to warn the ancient Israelites to not take more manna than they needed from day to day because the excess would simply rot and be worthless to them.

Besides, as we’ll see, Jesus doesn’t expect us to reach out or make disciples in our power, as though we could say, “We’re going to do it” and actually do it. Jesus, after all, says, “I will build My Church.” (Matthew 16:18)

We can’t make disciples, bring people to faith in Jesus Christ. Only God can do that.

It is only the Holy Spirit, working through the Word of God–heard, read, or received in the Sacraments–Who creates faith in Jesus and “the communion of saints.”

But God has always used His people to bring His saving Word to others. In fact, when God Himself brought the good news into our world, He did so as a sinless Man Who died on a cross for us and rose from the dead for us. God likes using human beings to touch other human beings.

And so, as is His penchant, there is also a Gospel Word–a word of undeserved promise, undeserved grace–in the great commission. After telling us to make disciples and knowing that we couldn’t possibly do that on our own, Jesus graces us by saying, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

Think of what Jesus is saying here!

We don’t have to wait until we die to know that He is by our sides. That in itself is a great comfort when we face the challenges of this life.

I can’t tell you how many times in the past forty-plus years of being involved in ministry how often people have told me of being comforted by the fact that there in the hospital, there in the intensive care unit, there in the funeral home, Jesus was beside them!

What have we done to deserve such a promise from the Lord of heaven and earth?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Jesus has done it all for us!

And He's' promised us life beyond the grave besides!

Our call is simply to daily turn from sin–repent–and trust in Him for the forgiveness of our sins and everlasting life with God. And when turning to Jesus gets too hard, we need to soak up the Word, because it is the Word that will turn us to Him.

So, how does the great commission get accomplished? I mean it seems like a monumental thing.

It must have felt that way to the first apostles when Jesus gave them the great commission. Imagine it! Jesus tells these eleven men, who don’t have exactly a stellar track record in the first place, that they’re going to carry His Gospel Word to the whole world. They were to make disciples of all nations.

So how does this impossible mission get accomplished?

The Savior Who gives us eternity and promises to be with us always works through us. That’s the plan and there’s no plan  B.

He speaks through us.

He serves through us.

He does this in the lives of imperfect people who heed His call, given in Luke 9:23: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

The God we know in Jesus saves, sanctifies, and sends those who daily turn to Him in repentance and faith and are then assured by His Word, “For Jesus’ sake, all your sins are forgiven and you belong to Me forever! And for Jesus’ sake, you belong to God now and forever!”

Many Christians refuse to even consider reaching out to others, even when it comes things like inviting them to “pre-evangelism” events like Toddler Time or pickleball. They’re also wary about engaging in kindness outreaches or asking their friends and acquaintances to join them for Bible studies or even worship.

Why? They fear rejection.

But God’s Word says: “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1)

Rejection hurts; but nothing is eternally fatal to the person who trusts in Jesus Christ!

You may remember the story I’ve shared before about South African bishop Desmond Tutu. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work against apartheid in his country. That work also won him constant death threats. He was asked why, in light of those threats, he continued to work against injustice. He said he couldn’t help it: as a Christian, his blood boiled against injustice. “Besides,” he said, “death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a Christian.” We need not fear rejection.

Some Christians think they don’t know enough to share Christ and the Gospel with others.

But did you notice the story of the Samaritan woman who met Jesus at Jacob’s well that we read a few Sundays ago?

The woman thought maybe Jesus could be the Messiah and went back into the village to invite others to meet Jesus. There is no indication that between the time she left the well and went into the village that she’d gotten a Master of Divinity degree. She didn’t receive any evangelistic training.

After encountering Jesus and His Word, the townspeople later told the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” (John 4:42)

All it took was a woman who only knew what she knew, giving her tentative conclusions about Jesus to the people of Sychar, inviting them to hear the Word for themselves.

To reach out to others with the Gospel, you don’t need to know everything; you only need to point others to Jesus.

There is no such thing as failure or embarrassment for the Christian who shares Christ and His Gospel with people they know or care about.

Reaching out, evangelizing, is, as someone has said, nothing more than, “One beggar telling another beggar where to find food.”

Jesus is the bread of life none of us can earn but all of us can freely receive.

Every person here tonight knows how important Christ is for them in their daily lives.

How He has helped them in hard times.

How His promises to sustain us through grief always come through.

How He fills us with peace through His gracious love.

We don’t want anyone we know to go through this life or to face eternity without Jesus by their sides!

That’s why, even though I pray every day that Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will be brought to an end and that Putin will be brought to justice, I also pray that he will come to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Christ even died for him. Christ even wants him in the fold.

The New Testament book of Acts tells the history of the first Christians, almost all of them Jews, and how the risen and ascended Jesus used them to spread the Gospel and build His Church among both Jews and Gentiles.

Not long after the first Christian Pentecost, Peter and John were hauled before the religious authorities at the temple and told to never again speak or teach in the name of Jesus.

This was not just advice. It was these same authorities who had, not long before, lobbied Pilate to have Jesus crucified.

But Peter, who once denied knowing Jesus three times, is now filled with the Holy Spirit Who had come to believers as Jesus promised, joins John in telling the authorities: “We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:20) Peter and John knew that nothing could separate them from the God Who had justified them, saved them, by His grace through faith in Christ Jesus.

That’s why, after the authorities released them and they returned to the fellowship of the Church, the whole Church prayed together, “Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.” (Acts 4:29) They prayed for boldness to speak the name of Jesus in the face of threats.

Friends, at your Baptism, you received the same Holy Spirit Who gave Peter and the first disciples boldness to share Jesus and His Gospel.

May we pray for boldness to tell others about Jesus too, knowing the Holy Spirit can do that through us as certainly as He helped the first Christians to be Christ’s witnesses!

One prayer you might offer to God each day is, “Father, in Jesus’ name, push my fear and insecurities aside and unleash the Spirit to speak the good news of Jesus to someone today.”

Jesus has already saved you from sin and death and condemnation. It is an accomplished fact. May you live in the peace and assurance that gives, and so, as Peter says elsewhere, “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:15)

As long as you live on this earth, the Holy Spirit will empower you to reach out with the good news of Jesus whenever and wherever God leads you. Jesus has promised that and you can believe it. Amen

The Subversive Act of Marriage

[This message was shared tonight during the worshipful worship ceremony of Phil and Julie Hohulin. Phil is a cherished pastoral colleague.]

Julie and Phil, marriage is a subversive act, a defiant refusal to acquiesce to our inborn nature’s desire to go it alone, to have our own way, to be our own gods.

This human default position can be traced right back to the garden of Eden. After Adam and Eve fell into sin, they immediately revealed how sin had taken hold of them.

They hide from God. God asks, “Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” Adam: “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Eve: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” So much for “at last, this is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.” (Genesis 3:9-13) It’s been mostly every sinner for themselves ever since.

That’s why your marriage, Phil and Julie, which we joyfully celebrate with you today, is a subversive act. Far from hiding from God, you’re asking Him today in Jesus’ name to be the other partner in your marriage. You know that every marriage is meant to involve a man, a woman, and God.

But neither of you is naive. You know that marriage has its enemies. Scripture and the Catechism name them: the devil, the world, and our sinful selves. These enemies can wreak havoc in all of our relationships: marriages, friendships, families, churches, nations. When sin prevails in our lives, we forget God’s will for us: to love God and to love neighbor, even the neighbor with whom we share the marital bed.

Among the passages just read, Jesus speaks of one of the sins by which the devil, the world, and our sinful selves prevents many people from having the marriages God wants for them and prevents others from even considering marriage. That sin is worry or fear.

Jesus says: “...I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matthew 6:29-34)

Fear and worry are the opposite of faith. When we know that we have been saved by grace through faith in Christ, we know that God has set us free from sin, death, darkness, and fear. 

That’s why, clapped in a prison cell for preaching Christ and His gospel, Saint Paul could say, “...we are more than conquerors through him who loved us...neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord…” (Romans 8:37-39)

With the psalmist, the Christian can say, “The LORD is my light and my salvation-- whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life-- of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1)

The devil, the world, and our sinful selves can only cause us to cave into the temptations of worry and fear if we fail to rely on Jesus. For those who are married, the reliable presence, grace, and provision of the God we know through Jesus Christ means that, not only do we have eternal life with God, it means that even when pressures and uncertainties assail us in our marriages--when we disagree, when ill-health threatens us, when money gets tight, when the quirks of our spouses get to us (although we know that neither of you have quirks)--God will never fail to forgive, love, and empower us to keep living together and loving one another in this covenant of grace called marriage. 

God’s Word is clear. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,” we’re told (Romans 10:13). And Jesus promises, “...the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13). 

When you follow Jesus Christ, you have nothing to fear and a Lord to be trusted with your whole lives...including your marriage!

So, Julie, Phil, along with everyone else who is here today, I am honored to be with you now and I say good for you for being subversives who dare to trust the God revealed in Jesus! 

Daily seek Him together, individually, and in the fellowship of Christ’s Church and He will reward your faithful subversion, come what may, with a life filled with Him now and forever. God bless you! Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Food, losing weight, my body, and prayer

On June 13, I had my annual physical with the cardiologist. Six years ago, in what the doctor regards as a fluke, I had a heart attack that wiped out 40% of my heart. (Presently, there is no treatment that will restore damaged heart tissue, although there is some promising research indicating that, through the introduction of stem cells, this can happen. The research is still in the early stages.)

Since the attack, I've not only had a stent inserted in the left anterior descending artery of my heart, where there had been a 100% blockage, but also, as a precautionary measure, I've received a pacemaker/defibrillator.

The cardiologist is very pleased with my progress. Though I have an ejection fraction of only about 35%, my heart sounds good to him. My EKGs look good. And the pacemaker only engages periodically at night to regulate my heart rate.

My doc was complimentary, though he did notice that I'd developed more of a spare tire. He mentioned in passing that I could "lose a few pounds."

Personally, I was far more alarmed by my weight than the doctor seemed to be because, when one of the assistants weighed me, I learned that I was heavier than at any time in my life. The scales showed that I had ballooned to 189.7 pounds.

I was appalled! I knew that I'd had to go from a 34"-waist to 36". And I knew that I'd been growing heavier. But when I saw the actual number, I thought to myself, "This has to stop now!"

For the greater part of my adult life, I sported a 32"-waist. When I graduated from high school, I was a scrawny 118-pounds, on my 5'-9" frame. As I "filled out," my weight increased to 134-pounds, where it remained for about ten years. (Until his retirement, my dad was the same weight for almost his entire adult life. But even with his post-retirement weight increase, I now outweigh him.)

When I hit my late-40s, the waistline expanded and I hit 159-pounds. Even that was too much, according to my GP.

My weight did come down after my heart attack, as I scrupulously avoided the foods against which the heart people warned me. But I never got serious about weight loss as a goal in itself.

When I saw 189.7 though, I was shocked into taking action to reduce my weight.

On June 14, I put myself on a diet. At present, I'm limiting myself to 1700 calories a day, a number to which I've reduced gradually. (I started out allowing myself 2100 calories a day.)

We don't keep scales in our house and I'm glad that we don't. I don't want to check my progress--or lack of it--every day. I'm trying to establish a different relationship with food and to be healthier, not to impress other people.

This past Thursday though, we were in Columbus, where we shopped at one of our favorite grocery stores, Marc's. Next to the exit door are huge old-fashioned scales. I decided to step on and see if I'd made any progress. My weight registered at 181.5-pounds, a reduction of 7.2-pounds. I have to say that I was pleased. It isn't dramatic loss, but it feels that things are definitely moving in the right direction.

But a few observations on the journey so far:

The first two weeks were tough.
I know that there will be more tough days. But when you've trained your body to overindulge, the adjustment to more appropriate calorie levels is difficult. I rarely overeat at meals. And I've never cared for desserts that much. But I do tend to be a grazer, especially of Skinny Pop. (Which is wonderful stuff, but because I have been prone to eating way too much of it, it has been, for me, Fatty Pop.)

After this period of adjustment, eating less is becoming easier for me.
In fact, I ate too much at a meal last week. The size of meal was normal for me just a few weeks before. But I found that I felt miserable...after just those few weeks. I took that as an encouraging sign.

I use the Lose It app on my smartphone to record my calories.
I find it helpful and, from what I can tell, accurate.

This past weekend, because I knew that I would be having more meals out than usual and because of my progress, I suspended the diet for two days, Saturday and Sunday.
But I was back at the appropriate calorie levels today. I think a periodic vacation, especially after demonstrated progress is OK.

I try to start out in the right way each morning.
This is tough for me because breakfast is my favorite meal. But this morning, for example, I fixed myself two egg whites with less than a teaspoon of shredded cheddar cheese, a small stick of turkey sausage, and one ounce of orange juice. That came to 186 calories. (I was accustomed to fixing four egg whites with more cheese and having more orange juice for my daily breakfasts.) I find that reducing at breakfast sets the tone for my whole day.

As time goes on, I find it easier to resist the temptation to take in unnecessary or harmful calories.
I spent much of my day on Monday in meetings--interviews with prospective administrative assistants, a budget meeting, the meeting of a team charged with visioning our church's future building possibilities. I ate lunch, but had no dinner, as I dove into the afternoon and evening. In between meetings, a person, knowing that I'd not eaten dinner and had looked for something healthy in the church refrigerator, gave me a snack bag of corn chips. It was a kind gesture. But I told him, "Can't. That's got 140-calories." Just a few weeks ago, I would have found it easy to talk myself into eating a snack, "just to tide me over." In fact, I wouldn't have even questioned doing so.

The tips and observations of a friend on eating and cooking echo in my mind these days.
My friend probably doesn't even know how much I remember of or what an impact their words are continuing to have on me. But it helps to have a "food mentor," someone who has the right relationship with food and fitness and can point us in the right direction. If you have someone like this in your life, it can be a huge help!

But the number one key to the progress I've made so far? Praying.

Overindulgence in food is a desecration of our bodies. It gives an immediate gratification, a sensation that, like the wrongful use of drugs or alcohol, brings a fleeting good feeling that, unless we've become completely desensitized, later gives way to self-recrimination and guilt.

There's good reason for feeling guilty about any abuse of our bodies, which are gifts from God. This is especially true for Christians. The Bible teaches Christians that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, places where God dwells.

It's one thing to know this, of course, and another to live it. Self-control is foreign to we human beings born in sin, deeply oriented to doing whatever gives us pleasure, God's will or our own well-being be hanged.

But Galatians 5:22-25, tells us that those who willingly crucify both their selfish and self-destructive impulses, the subtle ways we're lured into behaving as though we were gods to ourselves, unaccountable to anyone, are given "the fruit of the Holy Spirit," including "self-control." God can give to those who seek His help through Christ, a strength that they can't muster on their own.

So, when I'm tempted to over-indulge, to get that snack that would tip me past my allotted calories for the day, I pray.

I pray just as I do when facing any other temptation in life. "God," I may say, "in Jesus' name, give me the power to resist this temptation. Help me to avoid unnecessary food. Give me strength to honor You by not abusing this body You've given to me. Make this the temple of Your Holy Spirit."

Absent prayers like that, offered repeatedly, I have no chance of reaching my goal of 155-pounds.

I'm not trying to get there in one fell-swoop. If I can lop off an average of 2-pounds a week, I'll be happy. In the meantime, I will be establishing a good habit and, at least in this one aspect of living, honoring the God Who has, through Jesus Christ, given me everything.

Hopefully, this post will inspire you to do something about some aspect of your life that may horrify you as much I was horrified on June 13.

But, remember to rely on the God we know in Jesus to help you reconstruct your life. Remember these words from Psalm 27:1: "Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain."

3 reasons you don't need to be afraid

A friend posted this quote on Facebook: "What is needed, now more than ever, is leadership that steers us away from fear and fosters greater confidence in the inherent goodness and ingenuity of humanity."

The speaker is former president, Jimmy Carter, someone I admire.

And I agree with him that we need leaders who refuse to be afraid or nurture fear among those they are called to lead.

But I disagree with the notion that we can have confidence in the "inherent goodness" of the human race.

The Bible teaches that human beings, while certainly capable of great ingenuity (something I talked about yesterday), the human race does not possess an "inherent goodness." The Bible teaches that we are all born in sin. In other words, we come equipped with an orientation for not loving God or loving neighbor, unless it suits us. Sin--looking out for number one--is our default mode.

You don't have to look far to confirm this truth. We have, as C.S. Lewis wrote, "inside information" on the reality of our sin condition. We need only do an honest self-assessment to see that if we rely on our own "inherent goodness," let alone the "inherent goodness" of the whole human race, we would be in trouble.

But in what I described yesterday as "this fearful and apprehensive" age, we need not fear.

I think that there are three reasons to flush fear from our lives.

First, despite all the insanity and evil in our world, the God we know in Jesus Christ is still in control. 

"In this world you will have trouble," Jesus says. "But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) The world will do its worst, but sin and death will not have the last say. Jesus has come into the world so that all who will turn from sin (repent) and trust in Him as their only hope, will belong to God through all the turmoil of this world and, in total perfection, in eternity. Jesus has conquered every trouble and every fear that this world can throw at us.

Second, the God we know in Jesus promises to be with those who follow Him, always. 

"I am with you until the close of the age," Jesus says to those who follow Him in Matthew 28:20. "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you,” we're promised by God in both Deuteronomy 31:6 and Hebrews 13:5. And in Psalm 27:1, King David asks rhetorically: "The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?"

Third, the thing that our sinful natures fear the most is our own deaths; for those who repent and believe in Christ, that fear has been taken off the table. 

Jesus says: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die;  and whoever lives by believing in me will never die" (John 11:25-26). And these words are backed up not only by the miraculous signs of Jesus capacity to make on good on this promise when he brought the dead back to life, but by his own resurrection, an event confirmed by more than 500 people. 

It is, maybe, this last point that gives us the greatest courage in facing our fears. Belonging to the God we know in Christ, Who has conquered my sin and the sins of the world, Who has conquered death for all who believe, sets me free to live without fear. We can pray without fear. Worship without fear. Love without fear. Change the world without fear. Stand up to injustice and bullies without fear.

We can do all of that because, even if we get killed by the things that others fear, we know that we belong to Jesus for all eternity. 

"It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes," Psalm 118:9 says. Don't rely on leaders to take away your fears. Civil leaders have an important role in securing safety and justice for a country's citizens, but none can erase all fears. No one can be relied on to take our fears away.

And we can't rely on human goodness or ingenuity either. Jeremiah 17:9 reminds us: "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" Our inborn sin is too quick to offer us reasons for being afraid and faulty solutions for overcoming our fears. Proverbs 3:5 warns us: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart; and lean not on your own understanding."

We don't have to be afraid for three big reasons: 1. The God we know in Christ is in control. 2. The God we know in Christ promises to always be with us. 3. The God we know in Christ has taken our number one reason for fear, death, off the table.

Lean on Christ.

What Will You Do with Your New Beginning?

[This was prepared to be shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio, last weekend.]

John 20:19-31
Everybody knows about the excitement that comes when you finally reach long-awaited new beginnings.

People count down the years, months, and days until high school, college, and graduate school graduations.

Couples and their families count down the moments until woman and man say, “I do.”

Expectant parents count down the passing months and days until the due dates.

Old friends keep track of the moments until they get to see each other again.

Job applicants are wracked with nervousness until they’re offered the perfect position for which they've been waiting.

In this time-bound world, it’s truly amazing when long-awaited, prayed-for, days come. When they do, there’s excitement, relief, celebration, jubilation...and apprehension, maybe even fear.

That’s because new beginnings always present us with a question: What  now? What do we do with a life that’s been changed by the new degree, the new husband, the new wife, the new career, the new child, the new love?

We rightly feel that it would be contemptuous of a long-awaited gift to do nothing with it.

Imagine a couple saying, “I do” in a ceremony before God and human beings and then parting ways, going on with separate lives.

Or parents thrilled by the birth of a new baby deciding to walk away from the hospital without their child.

When new beginnings come our way, we may not be certain about what to do with them, but we know, deep in our souls, that doing nothing is not an option.

And, in that same place in our souls, we know that we want whatever we do with our new beginnings to be the right thing. We don’t want to mess it up.

Our Gospel lesson for this morning is John 20:19-31. We’re going to focus on verses 19-23. These verses reverberate with the echoes of the first three chapters of the Bible, Genesis 1 to 3, where we’re told about God’s creation of the universe, the very first new beginnings of the earth and the heavens.

There, God’s breath or Spirit moves over the deep and life comes into being. A new beginning.

There too, God’s breath or Spirit--it’s the same word in Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament and the same word in Greek, the language of the New Testament--God’s breath or Spirit are infused into an incipient man and Adam becomes a living being. A new beginning.

A wonderful beginning. But later, in Genesis 6:6,  after Adam and Eve and their descendants fell into sin, we’re told that God regretted ever giving beginning to human beings.

Regretted, yes. But even then, God didn’t give up on the descendants of Adam and Eve. God hasn't given up on you and me. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus bore our death sentence for sin so that when He rose, those who dare to believe in Him will have new beginnings, life with God for eternity.

Look please at the opening verse of our lesson. It says: “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’"

It’s the Easter Sunday of Jesus’ resurrection, an amazing event. But Jesus’ resurrection is more than a neat trick by God. Easter is more than just Jesus beating death for Himself. This is what John is emphasizing by calling the first Easter, “the first day of the week.” For the creation and for us all, God, through Jesus, has brought to a world that spent centuries waiting for it, a new beginning to those who will trust in Christ.

But if it’s a new beginning, the disciples, Jesus’ followers, didn’t know what to do with it. They’d gotten word from several people that Jesus had risen and was alive.

The day and its message should have changed everything for them. Yet here they were, gathered for fear of their country’s religious leaders, behind locked doors.

They belonged to a risen, living Savior. But they were acting like people without hope, without the help of a powerful, death-destroying God. They were intent on hiding, afraid to venture out into the world.

That's not very different from us in the modern Church, really: We sing “Jesus Christ is Risen Today,” "Here I am, Lord...I will go, Lord, where You send me," or “Forever, author of Salvation He rose and conquered the grave,” yet we remain ensconced in our Christian ghettos, our holy huddles, afraid to leave the comfort zones we enjoy in our liturgies and songs and in our small groups and fellowship meals.

It may be true that our world is going to hell in a hand-basket. But part of the reason for that is that many Christians, like the first disciples on the evening of the first Easter, stay scrummed in fear in their little locked lives.

Folks: This is not what God means for us to do with the new beginnings He gives us through the risen Jesus Christ.

We see that in what happens next in our lesson. Look at verse 20: “[After Jesus had declared His peace on them] he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’" 



During the time He spent with the disciples before His crucifixion and resurrection, Jesus had spoken of being sent to the world by His Father. He was sent, He said in different places, to bear witness to God’s truth, sent to die and to rise.

This truth and Jesus’ death and resurrection were all about giving us new beginnings. “...if anyone is in Christ,” we’re told in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

It would be contemptuous of the new beginnings that Jesus expended His life, suffering, blood, and death to bring us not to do something with it. 



And Jesus is clear about what He wants us to do with the gift of our new and eternal beginnings--with our lives as the new creations you and I have become through faith in Him: We’re to go where He sends us.

Out of our locked and self-protective rooms.

Out of the safety of the known and into the unknown world.

After all, if you know you belong to a living Lord Who has already given eternity to you, why should you be afraid of anything this world might do to you?

As David wrote in Psalm 27: “The LORD is my light and my salvation-- whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life-- of whom shall I be afraid?”

Actually, it would be a frightening thing to go into the world to tell others about Jesus, to personally witness to a friend, to get involved with a kindness outreach, to go on a mission trip, or to invite a friend to a Bible study, just to name a few examples, if Jesus expected us to do any of these things on our own. But wherever Jesus sends us, we never go alone.

Please look at verses 22 and 23: “And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’"

The risen Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, breathes on His Church, on those who believe in Him, and they’re filled with the endless, infinite life of God, the same Spirit that brought the universe into being, that God breathed into Adam. And it’s the Spirit of the God Who has, for all who trust in Christ, put death in our rear-view mirrors.

God’s Spirit, the breath of God, comes to us when we are baptized, when we repent and confess our faith again, when we call out in helplessness to God in Jesus’ Name. 


Because of the new beginnings Christ gives to us--beginnings that not even death can end, we can live this life with boldness and confidence and hope.

In the power of Jesus living in us, we can do something with our new beginnings.

We can live.

And we can share the precious message that has changed us forever with a world that needs the same liberation from fear Jesus has given to us. Amen