Second Sunday of Easter, 19 April:

What Life Do You Want?


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Scripture reading: 1 John 1:1-2:2.

Sermon text: John 20:19-31.


This week, I stood and gazed on the smoking ruins of the first church I served as pastor. The church was robbed on Monday night; someone then burned the church to the ground on Tuesday night. I stood outside the yellow tape that encircled Pleasant Hill Baptist Church and looked past the blackened front walls and looked where the pulpit once stood, remembering where each person sat; the funerals I conducted there; and, looking past the pulpit, remembering the last person I baptized in my pastorate there.


Since then, I’ve met with members of that congregation and heard the same promises from each of them: “We will rebuild.” “God will work in this as He has everything else we’ve faced.” I confidently believe that Pleasant Hill Baptist Church will celebrate its 170th anniversary next year in a better facility than it has ever possessed before.


Standing outside that church in Hale County Alabama, I finally understood something of what the few disciples present at the crucifixion must have felt when they saw Jesus’ lifeless body hanging on the cross.  The disciples had given Jesus 3 years of their lives; they watched Him ride triumphantly into Jerusalem on the Sunday before, believing the Jews’ hopes of a Messiah would come true in their lifetimes. Only 5 days later, they gazed on the horrific scene of a Roman crucifixion, remembering the joys but fully believing that everything Jesus had promised had died with Him.


When we look at the events of today’s sermon passage, we can better understand St. Thomas’ reaction to news that Jesus had risen by remembering similar times in our lives when we watched our dreams evaporate before our eyes. The promised job doesn’t open, or the company closes, leaving everyone unemployed. The medical report obliterates all our future dreams as we hear we have only months to live. The accident happens in a split-second, destroying carefully built lives and leaving only disaster in the wreckage. How do we respond?


Fortunately, Jesus gave St. Thomas a new life. The resurrection of Our Lord transformed the world, bringing new hope to everyone who believe in His resurrection and who confesses Him as Lord of our lives.


The sermon text opens with St. John’s description what happened at the end of Easter, Resurrection Sunday. Some of the disciples had gathered to discuss the momentous events of the day. St. John freely confessed to his readers that they had locked the doors “for fear of the Jews.” An empty tomb had yet to fill the disciples with the massive confidence they would display following Pentecost.


Suddenly, Jesus “came and stood among them.” Remember St. John’s statement about the locked doors? Jesus miraculously appeared in the room! I don’t know about you, but I suspect that any such appearance — especially if I had watched the person die — would frighten me silly.


Jesus knew this; He told the disciples, “Peace be with you.” His statement reminds us of the angels’ frequent admonition in Scripture: “Fear not.” Jesus knew His appearance would send the disciples into near panic. He wanted them to remember the peace they possessed in His presence before the resurrection. Now, they would experience this peace for the rest of their lives.


To eliminate any doubt in their minds as to His resurrection, Jesus “showed them his hands and his side.” Jesus wanted them to know they weren’t seeing a ghost; He really lived again! The disciples witnessed that He physically lived again.


If we fail to understand the immense peace they felt, St. John (in classic understatement) recorded, “The disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.” In the Greek, the word implies a kind of ecstatic joy that people experience at religious festivals. The disciples’ joy exceeded anything in their lives, even the joy they experienced when Jesus first called them to follow Him.


Jesus continued by commissioning the disciples: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” Jesus wanted the disciples to carry out the mission He had called them to fulfill. What mission did Jesus give to the disciples? They would bear witness to the world that He had defeated death, bringing hope to humanity for the first time since death appeared in the Garden.


How could the disciples tell the world about a Man who had come to life after 3 days in the grave? Jesus “breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.” The disciples would testify to the resurrection through the power of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit would descend on the entire Church at Pentecost, but Jesus sent the Holy Spirit into the lives of those present to give them the strength they would need in the days leading up to the beginning of the Church.


Jesus had just given the disciples an important mission; now, He would give them an important message. “If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.”


This seems like an awesome authority to give on a small group of frightened followers, but this message has empowered the Church ever since Jesus committed it to those present in the room at His appearance. The gospel of Jesus Christ revolves around 2 messages that we give to the world: First, Jesus has risen from the dead; second, all who believe in His resurrection receive forgiveness of sins at their confession of Jesus as Lord of their lives.


What about the second part of this message? What did Jesus mean when He told the disciples about withholding forgiveness? Lest we think that Jesus intended for us to withhold forgiveness from anyone, remember the prayer He taught us to pray: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  We are commanded to forgive others and to proclaim the forgiveness of sins. However, those who have never asked Jesus to forgive them of their sins will find their sins retained at the final judgment.


Unfortunately, not all the disciples were present at Jesus’ appearance in the room. Thomas failed to attend; St. John doesn’t record why. I suppose we can ask ourselves what we would do in his place. How would we react when we watched our lives fall apart? What if we saw our leader hang on a cross?


I also can’t imagine what Thomas thought when someone told him that Jesus had risen from the dead. “What do they think I am? Do they honestly think I’ll fall for that cockeyed story?” “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”


I think this points to a major forgotten point about the resurrection of Jesus: The ancients knew that dead people didn’t return from the grave. Thomas reacted just as we would react.


Fortunately for Thomas, Jesus answered the challenge. Again, the disciples met behind locked doors. Again, Jesus appeared and said, “Peace be with you.” Then, turning to Thomas, He said, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” We should remember that Jesus wasn’t present when Thomas proclaimed that he wouldn’t believe in the resurrection unless he touched the marks. Still, Jesus answered Thomas’ doubts, leading Thomas to declare, “My Lord and my God!”


Thomas answered Jesus by declaring His allegiance to Him. Church tradition tells us that St. Thomas traveled to India and suffered martyrdom there. When the Portuguese arrived in India in 1498, they found over 1,500 Christian congregations already in place, claiming to descend from converts of St. Thomas.


This helps explain St. John’s last words in the chapter: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” St. Thomas received a new life, with the power to exceed his personal doubts and travel beyond anything in his imagination to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ.


What about us today? What dreams have you seen shattered in your life? What hopes dashed? Do you need another life?


Jesus provides new life to everyone who confesses Him as Lord, believing in His resurrection. We receive the assurance of peace with God, as Jesus imparted on His disciples. We possess this peace because Jesus’ blood has atoned for our sins, giving us access by faith to enter a relationship with God, our Creator.


When we confess Jesus as Lord, we also receive a new life in the Church. Jesus places all believers in a community of faith that helps us live as God commands, with new morals, new standards, and new priorities. We can ask God to direct us in new callings and rejoice when He calls us to new challenges. When we obey the call God places on our lives, we receive joy beyond description.


Finally, when we confess Jesus as Lord — believing in His resurrection — we receive the assurance of a new life following the death of our bodies. Scripture teaches, and the Church has always proclaimed, that Jesus’ resurrection is not an anomaly in history; His resurrection serves as the precursor for the resurrection of every human being that has ever lived or will ever live. St. Paul told the Christians in Corinth that those who are “away from the body” will be “at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8); in other words, all Christians, at death, will be in heaven with Christ. We will receive a “heavenly dwelling” until the final resurrection of our bodies (2 Corinthians 5:2); then, at the final resurrection, we will receive a new body and live forever in a new creation — a new heaven and a new earth — that will never know the effects of sin, including suffering and death.


Today, you must answer the question: What life do you want? Do you want only what this life than give — with all its uncertainties — or the assurance of an eternal life that begins at the moment of your confession and lasts forever? The disciples found true peace and joy in following Jesus. You can find new life by believing the gospel of Jesus Christ, the risen Son of God.