If Christ has not been raised from the dead, our faith is in vain and we are still in our sins. But now Christ Jesus — who was crucified for our sins — has in fact been raised from the dead for our justification. So has God the Father reconciled us and all the world to Himself by His Son; and so has He entrusted to His Church on earth the ministry of reconciliation. By and from the Cross — in the crucified and risen Body of Christ Jesus — by and with His Word and Holy Spirit, He bestows His sweet Peace upon us through the free and full forgiveness of all our sins. He raises us up from death to life, out of darkness into light, from doubt and fear and unbelief to faith and trust in Christ. Thus do we now live and love in the confidence and contentment of that sure and certain hope of the Resurrection of the body to the Life everlasting of body and soul with Him, our living Head — signed, sealed, and secured in His own Resurrection from the dead on the Third Day.
It was already on that Third Day, that first Easter Sunday, that the risen Lord Jesus came to His disciples, comforted them with His Peace, and commissioned them to carry and convey His Gospel to the nations. Each of the holy Evangelists records examples of these Resurrection appearances and the accompanying Words of our Lord, upon which the one, holy, Christian, and Apostolic Church rests and depends. St. Paul likewise indicates the various appearances of the crucified and risen Lord to multiple witnesses in his first Epistle to the Church at Corinth, the fifteenth chapter, which opens with a creedal affirmation of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ Jesus.
What is remarkable, as one reads or listens to the accounts recorded in the four Holy Gospels, is the persistence of doubts and fears on the part of the disciples — not only the first time, but on each occasion, albeit in a variety of ways. It should not surprise us, however, but rather comfort and encourage us, considering that we are likewise afflicted with persistent doubts and fears of our own, even though we surely ought to know better. It remains the case, throughout this mortal life on earth, that we cannot by our own wisdom, reason, or strength believe in Jesus Christ our Lord or come to Him. Thanks be to God that He comes to us in peace and love, and that His Holy Spirit calls us by the Gospel and brings us again and again to repentance, faith, and newness of life, in order to strengthen and sustain us in Christ Jesus as living members of His Body, the Church.
We find all of this laid out for us in the Holy Gospel According to St. John, the second half of the twentieth chapter, heard every year on the Second Sunday of Easter. It begins with St. John’s description of the appearance of the risen Lord to the disciples in the Upper Room, which follows immediately after the Emmaus story in St. Luke 24. There are similarities and differences in the details provided by the two Evangelists with respect to that first appearance on Easter Sunday evening. But then St. John goes on to record a second appearance of our Lord on the eighth day later, that is, the next Sunday. It is well known from St. John’s account that St. Thomas was absent from the gathering when Jesus first appeared, but then became the focus of our Lord’s attention on the second occasion. In his doubts and demands we recognize the frailties and fears of our own fallen flesh and sinful hearts and minds. So, too, in the Lord’s gracious dealings with St. Thomas we see demonstrated His patience, mercy, and compassion toward each and all of us, as well. Not only that, but in St. Thomas we also find an example of those men whom the Lord Himself called, ordained, and sent to preach repentance and forgiveness in His Name. And it is precisely by that Apostolic Ministry of His Gospel that He comes to us, abides with us, and deals with us as our Savior and Redeemer, our Lord, and our God!
While the Crucifixion of our Lord is the Hour of His Glory, and as such the crescendo of St. John’s Holy Gospel, the Resurrection appearances of Christ to His disciples in the twentieth chapter are the culmination of all that has transpired from the beginning. The concluding chapter that follows is brilliant in its own way, comprehending as it does the restoration of St. Peter (against the backdrop of his denials). But our Lord’s bestowal of Peace, the Holy Spirit, and the Office of the Keys — and the opening of His wounds to St. Thomas and the rest of the disciples — gathers up all that He has accomplished by His Cross and thereby establishes the Church and Ministry of His Gospel for all the ensuing generations.
In this Easter account we find the Incarnation confirmed, the Holy Trinity revealed and at work, the means of grace bestowed, and the divine gifts of repentance and faith, forgiveness, life, and salvation made available. We hear the confession of Christ Jesus and receive the peace, hope, and joy that belong even to us, who are blessed to believe in Him by the testimony of the Apostles, even though we do not yet see Him. Thus do the redemption, reconciliation, and righteousness of the Cross and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ become ours by grace through faith in Him.
Who, then, is this Lord Jesus Christ? That is the heart of the matter, for St. John as for all the Apostles and Evangelists. If Jesus is to be our Strength and our Song, our Savior and Salvation, it is necessary that He be true God and true Man. And so He is! From the beginning of the Gospel it has been asserted and affirmed that He is the divine Word by whom, through whom, and for whom all things are created and exist, the divine Word who is the Light of the world and the Life of all people, who for us men and our salvation came down from heaven and became Flesh of our flesh and Blood of our blood. Conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the only-begotten God who resides from all eternity in the bosom of God the Father has come to reveal and make known His Father to us in love. For this purpose He was baptized, anointed by the Holy Spirit in His own human Body, openly declared the Son of God, and identified as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (St. John 1:1-34). Herein are all the Mysteries that come to fruition in His Cross and Passion, which are in turn bestowed upon His Church in the gathering of His disciples in His Resurrection from the dead. So, for example, His divine nature and power are demonstrated by His sudden appearance behind locked doors (St. John 20:19, 26), by His breathing of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles (St. John 20:22), and by His knowledge of the demands that Thomas has made regarding His sacred wounds (St. John 20:25, 27). Paradoxically, though His wounded hands and side are the evidence that He remains the true Man of flesh and blood who was crucified, died, and was buried, they elicit from St. Thomas the profound confession that He is “Lord” and “God!” (St. John 20:28). And in turn, the Apostolic witness obtains such faith in countless others, who are thereby granted to believe and confess “that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (St. John 20:31). Which is to say that this Man, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of St. Mary, crucified and risen from the dead, is the Lord’s Anointed, the Bearer and Bestower of the Spirit, the only-begotten Son of God the Father, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God. He has come down from the Father in heaven to us, has borne all our sins and griefs and sorrows in His own Body to the Cross, and gathers us to Himself, grafting us into His riven and risen Body, in order to bring us to the bosom of His God and Father in peace and love and holiness.
It is fundamental to this Gospel that the risen Lord is the crucified Christ. His Cross is not to be repeated, His once-for-all Sacrifice is finished, perfected, and complete. But neither are His Cross and Passion left behind, forgotten in the past. It is by His being “lifted up” in death upon the Cross that He has glorified the Father and accomplished our salvation as the Propitiation for our sins — and not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole world (St. John 3:14-15, 12:27-32; 1 John 2:1-2). Despite appearances, this “lifting up” is also the beginning of His return to the Father, as well as the means whereby He calls and gathers disciples to Himself from all the nations, to be lifted up in and with Him. His atoning Sacrifice and the shedding of His holy, precious Blood cleanse us from all unrighteousness and open the Kingdom of heaven to all who believe and are baptized in His Name. So do His innocent suffering and death make possible the gift of His Holy Spirit, that we should be sanctified in the presence of God and not consumed and destroyed by His divine glory and absolute holiness. What He thus accomplished by His Cross, He delivers to His disciples in His Resurrection from the dead; the Spirit He gave out from the Cross (St. John 19:30) He breathes upon His Apostles in the Upper Room (St. John 20:22), that they in turn should breathe the same Spirit into others through the forgiveness of sins in His Name and stead.
Similarly, the wounds that He received upon the Cross — in His hands and side — are now opened to His disciples in His Resurrection. There is more than proof of His identity at work here. The Evangelist has stressed the piercing of His side — and the outpouring of blood and water from His side — in the account of our Lord’s Passion (St. John 19:34-37). In this we see a picture of the New Adam who gives life to His Bride, the Church, by the waters of Holy Baptism and the Blood of His New Testament in the Holy Communion. So, here again, what He has accomplished by His Cross is now manifested in His Resurrection, summoning His disciples from the death of doubt and despair to faith and life and peace and joy. Notably, these same three holy things — the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood — are cited in St. John’s First Epistle as a unified threefold witness to Jesus Christ, the Son of God (1 John 5:5-9). And in the previous chapter of that same Epistle, the Apostle indicates the nature and content of that witness, namely, “that Jesus Christ has come in the Flesh” (1 John 4:2). Indeed, not only in His Incarnation, but from the waters of His Baptism — where He was anointed by the Spirit and confessed by His Father — to the blood of His Cross, and now in His Resurrection from the dead, the Son of God has come — and does come — in the Flesh. As He promised His disciples on Maundy Thursday, on the Eve of His Passion, He has not left them as orphans, but He comes to them and discloses Himself to them (St. John 14:18-21). His coming to them is prominent in the first and second Resurrection appearances (St. John 20:19, 26). Likewise, the Peace that He promised on that earlier evening (St. John 14:27) is spoken and delivered to them repeatedly in connection with His Resurrection coming (St. John 20:19, 21, 26). It is surely no coincidence that His Word of Peace accompanies the opening of His wounds and the breathing of His Spirit, for it is the Crucified One who is risen from the dead who comes to them with His Word and Spirit, Flesh and Blood, that they should have faith and life in Him.
The Gift of the Holy Spirit — the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter (Paraclete) — was also promised in our Lord’s “farewell discourse” on Maundy Thursday evening (St. John 15:26-27, 16:7-15). Prior to that, on the last, great day of the Feast of Booths, the Lord Jesus declared that those who believe in Him would receive the Holy Spirit, who would in turn well up in them as a River of Living Water (St. John 7:37-39). But that Gift of the Spirit would not be given until Jesus was glorified — a reference to His Crucifixion (St. John 7:39, 19:30). The Blood and Water from His pierced side, and the subsequent breathing of the Spirit upon His disciples, inaugurated the fulfillment of those promises and established the ongoing work of the Spirit in the life of the Church on earth (St. John 19:34-35, 20:22-23; 1 John 5:6-8). As the Son receives the Spirit from the Father — in His Baptism and in His Resurrection from the dead (St. John 1:32-34; Acts 2:32-33; Romans 8:11) — so does Jesus pour out the Spirit upon His Apostles and upon all who believe in Him through their Word (St. John 17:20). And as the Holy Spirit takes from the Father the things of Christ and bestows them upon the Church through His Word (St. John 16:14-15), it is the Spirit who gives Life and Salvation in and with Christ Jesus (St. John 3:5-8, 6:63). Accordingly, the Lord’s breathing of the Spirit upon the disciples recalls the breathing of life into Adam (Genesis 2:7), as well as the breathing of the Spirit into the resurrected bones and bodies of Israel (Ezekiel 37:7-14). This is the fulfillment and perfection of Creation in the crucified and risen Body of Christ Jesus, who pours out the Spirit of His Father upon His own, even as that same Spirit lays Christ upon their hearts and minds, bodies and souls, through the forgiveness of the Gospel.
This is our Life and our Salvation, that is, to receive the Spirit of the Father in the Son, and to be united with Christ Jesus and anointed by His Spirit as beloved and well-pleasing children of His God and Father. It is for this Life with God in Christ that we have been created in His Image and Likeness — redeemed from sin and death, rescued from the devil and hell, reconciled to God by the Cross of Christ, and righteous in His sight by faith in His Word.
All of this is worked in us by the Spirit through the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ Name (St. Luke 24:46-49). Here in St. John’s Holy Gospel, that takes the form of the forgiving or retaining of sins by those who are sent by Christ Jesus, as He is sent by the Father, anointed by the Holy Spirit for this Ministry of the Word. As all three Persons of the Holy Trinity are actively present and at work in Holy Baptism (St. John 1:32-34), so are all three Persons of the Holy Trinity actively present and at work in this binding and loosing of sins (St. John 16:5-15, 20:21-23). Everything aims at repentance and faith in the forgiveness of sins, that sinners should be saved from death for abundant Life with God in and with Christ Jesus, by virtue of His Cross and Resurrection (St. John 10:7-18, 20:31). The Spirit is not simply an instrumental means to these ends. To bear the Spirit of God is to share in the divine Life, even to partake of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:3-4).
That being said, Luther helpfully distinguishes between the bearing of the Spirit by faith for one’s own life and salvation, and the bearing of the Spirit in one’s office for the benefit of others (Luther's Works AE 69, 354-359). In the case at hand, the Apostles are anointed by the Spirit for the Office of the Holy Ministry, for the forgiving or retaining of sins in the Name and stead of the Lord who calls, ordains, and sends them with His authority. While the forgiveness of the Gospel is confessed, spoken, bestowed, and delivered in a variety of ways — by preaching, Holy Baptism, and the Holy Communion, and in the consoling testimony of Christians for one another (Smalcald Articles III.IV.1) — it is significantly conveyed by the ministers of Christ, not according to their own persons, nor even by virtue of their own Christian faith and piety, but by virtue of their objective office and station (Apology VII-VIII [IV].47).
The objective integrity of the Office of the Holy Ministry is particularly important, because it is the primary way and means whereby the Lord Jesus comes to His people and bestows the Spirit upon them for the forgiveness of their sins and for the gift of His Life and Salvation. That is the case, expressed in different ways, in the commissioning accounts recorded by each of the four holy Evangelists: St. Matthew highlights Holy Baptism and ongoing catechesis in all that Jesus has commanded (St. Matthew 18:18-20), St. Mark similarly focuses on preaching and Holy Baptism (St. Mark 16:15-16), and, as already noted, St. Luke emphasizes the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ Name (St. Luke 24:46-48). We see these very things exemplified, as well, in Acts 2:37-42, culminating in the Apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the Breaking of the Bread, and the prayers of the Church. In St. John 20, the focus is on the forgiving of sins, which is at the heart and center of the entire Church and Ministry of the Gospel. And in the next chapter, the Apostle and Evangelist summarizes this pastoral ministry — in the Words of Jesus to St. Peter — as the feeding, tending, and nurturing of His own dear lambs and sheep (St. John 21:15-17).
This preaching and administration of the means of grace for the forgiveness of sins is the ordinary continuation of the extraordinary office and work of the Apostles. As such, along with and by the forgiveness of sins, this pastoral ministry has the same goal and purpose as St. John’s writing of the Holy Gospel: “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, you may have life in His Name” (St. John 20:30-31). This is precisely our confession concerning the Office of the Holy Ministry, that the Lord has instituted this preaching of His Word and the administration of His Sacraments in order to establish saving faith, where and when it pleases Him, in the hearts and lives of those who thereby hear and receive the Gospel (AC V). And this same Ministry is the source and substance of the Church’s true identity and unity (AC VII-VIII). So it is that Church Fellowship is essentially a fellowship of pastoral ministry and pastoral care, a mutual administration of the means of grace. To embrace the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace is to confess one Lord, to teach one faith, to practice one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and to live and love as children of one God and Father in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 4:1-7). Not as a merely “political” arrangement, but as a genuine fellowship in the actual practice of those who receive and bear the Holy Spirit in accordance with the Word of the Lord, who are called, ordained, and sent in the Name and stead of Jesus the Christ.
It is, indeed, a remarkable Word of the Lord Jesus, that He sends the Apostles as the Father has sent Him, especially considering the importance attached to the Father’s sending of His Son (St. John 3:16-17; 5:23-24; 6:29, 38, 57; 8:16, 18, 42; 10:36; 12:44-45; 14:24; 17:3, 8, 21, 23). To fear, love, and trust in the only true God, and to believe in Jesus Christ whom He has sent, is the pivotal point of the faith in the Gospel According to St. John (17:3). To know the Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son, is to know the Father in Him (St. John 1:14-18, 14:5-11). And by extension, the Lord Jesus Christ is received, heard, and known in the words and works of those whom He sends in His Name (St. John 13:20; St. Matthew 10:40; St. Luke 10:16). Thus do we seek the Lord where He may be found — in the preaching and ministry of His sent ones within the life of the Church on earth. We know Him, especially, in His Word of Absolution, the forgiveness of sins in His Name. And where we have deviated or departed from His Word, He calls us back to Himself by the preaching of repentance, even by the discipline of the binding key — and excommunication where necessary — that we should be turned around, away from our sins, to the Life and Salvation that are found only in God. So He did for Thomas, in love, and so He does for each of us.
This Holy Gospel not only shows us the ministry of reconciliation and salvation, but also the ongoing faith and life of Christian disciples within the Body and Bride of Christ, His Holy Church. That is one of the most beautiful and compelling aspects of this account. And here we are not talking about simple practicalities or strategic programs, but about the real-time experience of Salvation in the fellowship of the Holy Triune God. That is what the Apostles have with the Father in the Son and by the Holy Spirit, and that is what we are now given and receive through the Word of the Apostles in the Church and Ministry of the Gospel (1 John 1:3-4; St. John 17:20; Acts 2:42). The paradigm for that life and fellowship is depicted and spelled out for us in St. John chapter 20.
St. John’s description of “that day, the first day of the week,” and again, “after eight days,” when the disciples were gathered together inside, behind closed doors, immediately calls to mind the gathering of the Church, week by week, on the Lord’s Day (St. John 20:19, 26; Revelation 1:10). The Resurrection of our Lord on the first day of the week, as well as these very appearances of our Lord to His disciples, established the Church’s practice of coming together for the Lord’s Supper on Sundays (initially in the evenings, as in this case, but eventually in the mornings). And just as the Breaking of the Bread at Emmaus (St. Luke 24:28-35) points to the Breaking of the Bread in the life of the Church (Acts 2:42-47), so does this Holy Gospel from St. John point to the coming of our Lord — His weekly Advent — to the place where His disciples are gathered together in His Name, by and for His Word, to hear His preaching of forgiveness, to receive the Gift of His Spirit in and with and through that preaching, and to enter into the fellowship of His Body through His opened wounds. That is where and how the Church lives — on earth as it is in heaven.
It is no accident or coincidence that the Peace of the Lord (Pax Domini) punctuates the Liturgy of the Lord’s Supper. It is what we pray for in the Gloria in Excelsis, and again in the Agnus Dei; and it is what we are granted by His Word following the consecration of the Sacrament, and then in the Sacrament itself, His Body given and His Blood poured out for us Christians to eat and to drink in faith and with thanksgiving for the forgiveness of sins. Thus do we Lutherans regularly “depart in Peace” with the Nunc Dimittis on our lips, because His Word has been fulfilled in us by the gifts of His Spirit, Flesh, and Blood. In this perfect Peace of Christ we are sent as Christians, anointed by His Spirit, as children of His God and Father, to live and love and serve to the glory of His Name within our callings and stations. In the world we are yet routinely confronted with trials and tribulations, but He has overcome the world on our behalf, and our sure and certain hope abides in His crucified and risen Body — to which we belong by grace through faith in Him, by the new birth of water and the Spirit, and by the New Testament in His Blood. That is the source and substance of our true and lasting Peace, such Peace as the world neither knows nor can it give or take away (St. John 14:27).
I’ve already mentioned how the post-Resurrection coming of the Lord to His disciples, His gift of the Spirit, and His granting of Peace are the fulfillment of His promises on Maundy Thursday evening. On that same occasion, He forewarned the disciples that for a little while they would no longer see Him, and they would “weep and lament” for that time. But then they would see Him again, and their sorrow would turn to joy (St. John 16:16-22). This promise, too, is here fulfilled in St. John chapter 20. For the disciples were troubled and afraid, hiding behind closed doors, but they rejoiced “when they saw the Lord” (St. John 20:20). St. Thomas, likewise, on the subsequent Sunday, was brought from his doubt and fear to believe and confess the risen Christ Jesus as his Lord and his God when he saw Him with his own eyes (St. John 20:26-29). And now, for our part, although we do not yet see Him, we are blessed to believe and trust in Him, to confess His holy Name, to worship and adore Him, all by the eyewitness testimony of those holy Apostles (St. John 17:20, 20:31). For what they saw, what they looked upon, what they touched and handled, and what they heard from the crucified and risen Lord Jesus, they proclaim to us in the Holy Scriptures (1 John 1:1-4). By this Word, by faith in this Word, we have fellowship with the Apostles, with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and with one another as members of the Body and Bride of Christ Jesus. And in this sharing of the Christian faith and life with us and the whole Church, the joy of the Apostles is made full (1 John 1:4). Thus do the many signs which Jesus performed in the presence of the disciples continue among us in the Apostolic Ministry of His means of grace. And thus do we have faith and life and peace and joy in His Name (St. John 20:30-31).
It is enough, and we are content — confident and courageous in all affliction and in the face of death itself — because Christ Jesus, our “living Head,” has risen from the dead. As He comes to us in mercy and abides with us by grace with His own Word and Spirit, Flesh and Blood, so do we live and abide in and with Him in body and soul, in heart, mind, and spirit — here in time, and hereafter in eternity. As we are set free from the chains that bind us by the liberating Key of Holy Absolution, so shall we awake and arise from death and the grave to live forever with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Arising glorious in body and soul, like unto the glory of our dear Lord Jesus Christ, we shall rejoice before Him forever and forevermore.
Indeed, Christ Jesus “rose for this purpose: so that we should be righteous and live through His Resurrection, and this is what He has commanded His Apostles and everyone to preach unto the end of the world, namely, that a Kingdom has been established on earth, which is a Kingdom over against sin, death, and the power of the devil, and it brings heavenly and eternal blessings. Christ help us thereunto, who has risen” from the dead and lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever (Luther’s Works AE 69, 436). To Him be all the glory, honor, and praise!
