Outer Rim Territories

Sermon for Easter 3B - Luke 24:36-43

The following sermon was preached on 16 Apr 2009 at Trinity, Lowell, Indiana. My writing is messy and the delivery was rough. Practice makes perfect and I'm out of it. I tried to preach the whole pericope and should have stuck to one theme, that is, the bodily presence of Jesus. Yet, with no further caveats, enjoy.

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Luke 24:36-43 (44-49) Easter 3B

Dear Christian brothers and sisters,

Last week the Gospel from St. John told of the disciples in the room, locked behind closed doors - for the fear of the Jews. Jesus came to them, appearing like a ghost. Thomas was singled out as the doubter. He believed only after bloodying his hand by touching Jesus’ the wounds in His side and hands. Despite their doubt and fear, Jesus commissions them to go forth with the peace He spoke to them.

Today we have the same account as it is recorded by St. Luke. This week Thomas isn’t the only one who gets a bad rap but all the disciples are the doubters. The Lord grants them peace in Him and He sends them forth in peace. Now that they believe that Jesus is risen; now that they believe the Easter victory, what do they do? John records sending the disciples with the power of the keys … the apostolic authority to bind and loose sins. Today, St. Luke gives us another piece of the apostolic ministry of the Gospel. Jesus opens their eyes to understand the Scriptures and teaches them how to preach in His name.

Do we understand the disciples emotion in that upper room? Do we know why they feared and how their fear is our fear? How does Jesus remove their doubt? How does He remove their doubt? Let’s consider how this story is truly our story.

Your fearless leader has died. The man who took on demons, Pharisees, Saduccees, elders, scribes, pagans, and even Rome itself is gone. He abandoned you to all these wolves of the world. All Jerusalem saw your man, mighty in deed and word, Jesus of Nazareth, condemned by your chief priests. Your rulers crucified Him. You laid all their hopes for redemption on his shoulders. Now – He is dead.

It is now the third day, Easter Sunday. But now – the tomb is empty! Really? How can this be? The angels proclaimed to the women that He is not dead. Jesus himself spoke to Simon and the other of you on the road. He broke bread, blessed it and gave it to you. With this breaking, your eyes were opened and you recognized Him. He opened the Scriptures to you, beginning with Moses and all the Prophets. It was necessary that He suffer the cross and enter into glory.

And then again, He vanished. He left you again. Your troubled conscience desired the risen Lord remain. Where is He now? Where is Jesus, the Lord with whom you have walked with all these years? Where is the comfort of your soul? Your teacher? Where is the redeemer of the world?

Doubt clouds your faith. The deceiver weaves into the truth strands of confusion and lie. A mere vision is not the lamb who was slain. Your soul is still troubled. If that man Jesus had redeemed the world, you should feel redeemed! Your soul should be at rest. Your heart should not be troubled. The kingdom of God your leader said He was about should be here.

Yet, you don’t know? You can’t feel the spirit. You emotions confuse you. The vision was surely the Lord but you can’t see Him now. He definitely broke bread and gave it to you. But was that the man whom you knew or just a ghost? Surely He has risen … but how? His body is gone from the tomb but the body who reclined at table now gone too, vanished like no body can.

While we yet say these things, HE - himself stands among us. “Being terrified and becoming afraid, [we] supposed we [are] seeing a spirit.” He is not mere spirit. He is not a ghost. The divine Word without beginning was stitched together with human flesh in the womb of His mother Mary. His is no ordinary body. The will of God that desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth was made man and incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the virgin Mary

The Word incarnate remains incarnate. The historical Jesus is the transcendent, present Jesus. “Why are you troubled and for what reason do thoughts rise up in your heart. See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch and see. For the spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

Yes, his body can vanish as before. Yes, now, He can pass through closed doors. Yes, He can appear on the Emmaeus road and in Jerusalem. His humanity is forever joined to His divinity. The Son of God, and also the Son of Man. His flesh is not only seated at the right hand of God; it is present wherever the new testament of He is offered. All the attributes of my Godhead are communicated to my flesh.

Do you still not believe, He says? “Do you have anything edible here?” Look, I am here in the flesh. Just as I ate bread with some of you in Emmaeus, I now eat broiled fish. I here testify that I have risen. I am risen indeed!

Dear Christians, this story is your story. Often the oppression in the world is too much to bear. Your Christian identity is defamed and derided by radical atheism. You are called unloving and irresponsible by the world for your celebration of the Christian family, defense of the life of the unborn, and your care for the needy, the elderly and the infirm. It might be tempting to hide behind these close doors. We too live in fear of our own Jews.

What’s worse is the shame and guilt that burdens your conscience. You know you have transgressed the law of the Lord. You have sinned against your Lord in thought, word, and deed. You have allowed the idolatry of wealth to tempt your heart away from sacrificial mercy for your neighbor. You have disobeyed your parents or your government. You wished evil upon your friend. You have craved in your stomach, with your eyes, and with your heart. Like those disciples, you retreat into yourself. Burdened by the shame of betraying your Lord, you avoid His penetrating glare, and lock away your heart from His judgment.

I am here today to bring the same message of Jesus in that locked room. Peace to you! Let not your hearts be troubled. He kept His promise. The Lord has risen and salvation is won. The world can try to assail you. They can try to break your bones with words but even broken bones will rise on the last day. Your can defend all that is godly in the public square without fear. The Lord’s peace is upon you

So too, all your sins are forgiven. You can live with a freed conscience. In Christ, there is no need to hide away your sins. Instead, hide yourself in Him. You can freely confess those sins, knowing that the peace He proclaimed to the apostles is the same peace He proclaims to you. Where is peace? How do we know it is true?

He says, “These are the words I spoke to you while I was still with you, that it is necessary that all the things that have been written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning me be fulfilled.” The seed was promised to crush the serpents head. It is finished. Cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree. It is done. He was despised and rejected man, less than a worm. It is true. The Word made man revealed himself as the fabric all the Scriptures from Moses to the Prophets. The culmination of the Old is the fountain of the New.

He opened their minds to understand that all that had been written in the Scriptures were written about Him. Jesus is the key to unlocking the Scriptures. “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead.” We are witnesses to these things, just as they were foretold to Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalmist. The Lord gives the apostles and the church the content of all true Christian preaching.

Our faith is not merely knowledge. Biblical literacy is a good thing, to be sure. Telling the story about the people of God and Jesus as the son of God gets you very little without the second half - WHY is this story told! By the preaching of the whole witness of Scripture as testifying to the necessity of God the Father sending His son Jesus, as it is told in both Old and New, we learn that it that our Lord’s death and resurrection was necessary.

Why? So that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations! This peace the Lord gives to you is for all the nations, for the sake of the whole world, beginning from Jerusalem. He continues to send forth His apostles into the world, proclaiming repentance and forgiveness.

This last week I saw the Lord act in the same way as in the Gospel for today. My classmates approached the altar of the Lord this past tuesday in great fear and trembling. It was Call Day. The journey we began almost four years ago is quickly coming to a culmination. Almost all of them (except myself and four others who are continuing into additional graduate work) were handed a document which told them of the first call in the Holy Ministry of the Lord. Equipped with the Word of the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms, their minds have been opened to understand the Scriptures. They are sent forth by the Lord in the same manner of the Apostles. They are going out from their locked doors of seminary life into all nations, to Canada, to Australia, to New England and to California. They go with that peace the Lord proclaimed that first Easter sunday. “Peace to You!” Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed to all nations.

The same proclamation happens in this place. Jesus can and does appear to you here. His body, broken for you, is forever present with His Word. Where the Word promises there the incarnate Jesus is for you. In that Word, Jesus promises His very body for you for the forgiveness of sins. He promises that wherever this gospel Word is done in remembrance of Him, there He is in body. The new covenant is in His blood, received in the ear and poured into the mouths of the faithful throughout the whole Christian church on earth.

Your fearless leader died. But He is not dead! The grave could not hold Him. His is risen, body and soul, divine and human! Do not doubt. Do not hide away. The world may assail you. But these are the deceiver lies. The Lord comes to you bodily with forgiveness. Touch Him and see. Listen to His voice. He is not mere spirit. He is flesh and bones, forever the lamb who was slain - that you may be forgiven and rise with Him to new life. Amen.

Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.