April 7, 2024 – John 20:19–31

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Hope Lutheran Church
Manhattan, Kansas
April 7, 2024
John 20:19–31

It was late in the evening on that first Easter Sunday. Word was out. The tomb Jesus had been placed in was empty. The guards who had been commissioned by the Jewish leaders to guard tomb had reported what had happened. A handful of Jesus’ followers had seen the empty tomb and risen Christ for themselves and shared it with others. There was no way to deny it. The grave was empty.
Christ had risen, just as he said he would.
But the reports hadn’t brought Jesus’ disciples peace. They were still afraid. And understandably so. I mean, they had just seen the Jewish leaders put Jesus to death. And now his body was gone. The disciples had to know the Jewish leaders wouldn’t take that at face value. Those Jewish leaders wouldn’t accept that Jesus had actually come back to life. They would assume that someone had gone to the gravesite and stolen the body to make it look like Jesus had risen from the dead. 
And who else would be suspect numbers one through eleven other than Jesus’ closest friends and disciples? The disciples knew that they would be next on the Jewish leaders’ hit list, so they were afraid for their own safety.
But they were afraid and anxious for another reason. As they stood there in that room together on that first Easter evening, each one of those disciples must have thought about what they had done and how they had acted just a few days before. 
All of them had promised they wouldn’t leave Jesus’ side. That they would stay with him even if it meant death. But when it came down to it, when the pressure was on, they had crumbled and fallen apart. They had abandoned Jesus. So if Jesus really had come back to life, what was he going to do to the disciples? What was he going to say to them? Their consciences must have been burning as they thought about how shamefully they’d behaved.
In their fear, the disciples had decided it was best to hide. They found a house where they could lock all the doors and keep to themselves. They wanted to make sure that no one could sneak up on them. But that’s when Jesus appeared. He had come to give them peace and give them proof of his resurrection.
Suddenly Jesus was there in the middle of the room these disciples had locked themselves in. Can you imagine how they must have felt at that moment? More fear, some confusion, guilt, and anxiety? The last few days flooding back?
But what does Jesus say to them to ease their fear and anxiety? What are the first words out of the Savior’s mouth to these troubled disciples? “Peace be with you.” 
Jesus hadn’t come to scold his disciples. He hadn’t come to point out all the mistakes they had made. No, he comes and he gives them something they didn’t have or deserve. He gave them peace.
Now the peace Jesus gives, it’s not peace like we normally think of peace. Because when we think of peace, the first things that pop into our heads are things like world peace. Financial peace. Peace in our personal and professional relationships. Or maybe we hear the word “peace” and we think of someplace we visited or view we saw where everything was quiet and calm.
But the peace that Jesus came to give was so much more than any of those things. The peace Jesus gave to those disciples and he gives to you and me is peace with God. Peace to know that every sin’s been forgiven. Peace to know we have a God who cares for us and loves us. Peace so we can believe that when life comes to an end, we have a place waiting for us in heaven. Peace that’s reality because Jesus paid the ultimate price on the cross to make it happen.
And to show them that he had paid the price that won peace, what does Jesus do? He shows them his hands where the nails still left their marks. He showed them his side which had been stabbed while he hung on the cross. He put the proof right in front of his disciples for them to see.
And the disciples’ reaction? Their fear turns to joy. They could see Christ was risen from death. That he’d gone to hell and back for them so that we could have peace.
But there was one disciple who was missing that night when Jesus came. For whatever reason, the disciple Thomas wasn’t there with the other disciples. He was off on his own. So he hadn’t had the chance to see Jesus for himself with the other ten disciples. When he met up with the other disciples again, they told Thomas what happened. They told him what they had seen. They told him what Jesus said.
And they didn’t just tell him once. They kept on telling him throughout the week. They wanted Thomas to have the same joy and peace they had. So day after day for a week straight they kept on telling Thomas what had happened.
But Thomas wouldn’t listen. He refused to believe what his friends told him. To Thomas, this news sounded too good to be true even if it was coming from people he knew and trusted. He had fallen into unbelief. And so he made a demand. He said, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
The truth is there are a lot of “Thomases” today. People who want proof of Jesus and want it on their own terms. People who won’t believe Jesus was anything more than just a good life coach with a few catchy sayings. People who find it crazy that, if there’s a God at all, he would become a man and live in the world.
Thomas’s unbelief didn’t stop the other disciples from telling him what they had seen and heard from Jesus. So when the next Sunday came around, the disciples found themselves locked in a house together again. But this time Thomas was with them. And in the same way as the week before, Jesus appeared with a message. And again he said, “Peace be with you.”
I have to wonder what Thomas thought when he first saw Jesus there with his message of peace. The other disciples had tried telling him for a week straight, but he hadn’t listened. He had been so sure he was right and they were wrong.
As Jesus approached him after addressing the group, he must have been afraid of what was coming next for him. If the rest of the disciples had felt guilty or scared the week before when Jesus appeared, Thomas must have felt that even more.
But what does Jesus say to this one disciple who’s still trapped in his doubt and unbelief? He meets Thomas in his doubt. He gives Thomas the proof he was looking for. He tells Thomas to do exactly as he had demanded in his unbelief. He says Thomas’s words right back to him. “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Those words hit Thomas like a load of bricks. He realized how foolish he had been. He was overcome with the grace he had been shown by his Savior. And he gives a simple confession. He says, “My Lord and my God!”
The real, bodily resurrection of Jesus is the proof we have peace with God. Proof we have been given through the eyewitnesses of men like Thomas. When they saw their risen Savior for themselves, when they touched his wounds and ate with him, there was no room left to doubt that Christ had risen from death.
And that proof, it gave those disciples locked away in fear and uncertainty, it gave them peace. And that same proof that gave the disciples peace that night still gives peace to troubled hearts today.
Because we have concerns about money or school, the future, our health, or the health of loved ones. We dwell on the sins of our past that just won’t leave us alone and keep us up at night. We think of times we’ve turned our back on Jesus. We wonder if Jesus could really forgive someone like me. If he can really love someone who fails over and over again to live like God’s child.
Or, like Thomas, we put conditions on God. When we’re filled with fear, anxiety, and doubt, there’s a part of me that thinks things like “I’ll believe it when God does blank” or “If just this one thing would happen, then I’d believe more” or “If I just got to see what those disciples saw, then I’d have a stronger faith.”
When we have those fears and those doubts, Jesus comes to each of us and gives us the same proof he gave his disciples. Proof that shows the peace he’s won for us.
And the proof for us is the same as the proof Jesus gave to his disciples. We won’t see our risen Savior face to face until we’re in heaven. But we do have it in his Word. Listen to what John says. “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
When we open the pages of the Bible we see exactly what those disciples saw. We see how Jesus fulfilled every promise and prophecy made about him and by him. We see the miracles that Jesus performed that point us to the fact that he really was who he said he was, the Messiah, the Son of God.
When open the Scriptures, we hear the price Jesus had to pay to win peace for us. His nail-marked hands and feet. His pierced side. His death. And we see and hear about the proof of his resurrection through the testimony of his disciples and so many other people he appeared to, all to show us he had won peace for us.
When the disciples saw the proof of the resurrection, you see the lengths they went to share that message. They were so convinced Christ had risen that they were willing to do whatever it took to bring that message to the world. Nothing could stop them from telling others. Even if it meant their own death.
And they did that to make sure you know that the resurrection of Christ wasn’t some myth or tall tale like Hercules or Paul Bunyan and his big blue ox. No, they had been given proof. And they were willing to die to share that proof with you. So that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
On that first Easter Sunday, Jesus’ disciples, were full of fear and doubt. They didn’t know what the future held for them. So Jesus came to them and gave them the peace and proof of his resurrection they needed. And even when Thomas was still stubborn in his doubt, still in his unbelief, Jesus came to him and gave him that same peace and proof.
And now, Jesus comes to you and me in his Word to give us that same peace and proof. Peace because sin has been defeated and forgiven. Proof through his death and resurrection written out for us through the words of Scripture.
Peace and proof so we can know that Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Amen!