Sunday, April 7, 2024, Second Sunday of Easter
“Life After Easter: Life In His Name”
Psalm 148; Acts 4:32-35; 1 John 1:1- 2:2; John 20:19-31
Divine Service III with Holy Communion
Hymns: #466 “Christ Has Arisen, Alleluia”; #471 “O Sons and Daughters of the King”; #480 “He’s Risen, He’s Risen”
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
We had a fine Easter celebration last week, with lots of singing and a nice crowd in Church. We heard the Good News once again that “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!” But Easter is over for another year, isn’t it? Not really! We call this the Second Sunday of Easter, not the Second Sunday after Easter, and there’s a good reason for that; there are five more Easter Sundays after this one, until we get to Ascension Day in the month of May. And Easter never ends for us anyway, does it? It’s always Easter in God’s Church.
So the question is, if Jesus has “risen indeed” for us, how do we go about living for Him? That’s going to be our theme for all the Sundays of Easter this year. What does “life after Easter” look like? Now that He’s been raised to life, how does our Savior ask us to live, and what is He calling us to do? St. John writes at the end of today’s Gospel, “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” What is “life in His name?” What should a life lived in His name look like? What does it mean to live your “after Easter” life for Him?
That short reading we heard from the Book of Acts this morning gives us a picture of the very first Christians and what life in their “after Easter” Church was like. “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.” The literal translation of “they shared everything” is “all things were in common.” The Greek word there is the pretty little word koina. For the Jews, koina things were the public things that were shared by the whole dirty world, like public drinking fountains, public restroom, or public bathhouses. Koina things were things that were not kosher, things that were unclean, unholy, and not to be touched. The Jews did their best to separate themselves from the world around them.
But in this new Christian Church, things have been turned around. The “koina” things have become the blessed things, the things we gather around, the things that unite us, the things that hold us together, no matter who we are. As St. Paul said, “Here there is neither Jew nor Greek, man nor woman, slave nor free, for all are one in Christ Jesus.” So that early Church had shared faith, shared food, shared fellowship, and shared Sacraments, along with shared joys, shared griefs, and shared troubles, with everyone one in mind, heart, and spirit. And it wasn’t a forced, collective sharing going on with them. (They weren’t Communists!) It was a willing kind of sharing, a sharing done out of love for God and for one another. A fine goal for us, don’t you think?
And in that early Church, our reading from Acts says, the apostles, the pastors of the Church, were blessed with great power from God to tell the truth about the cross and Resurrection of Jesus - and the result was great and wonderful grace that filled everyone. And those blessed, wonderful, grace-filled people were moved in their hearts to bring everything they could afford to give, and lay it at the apostle’s feet, in order to carry each other’s burdens and meet each other’s needs. A pretty picture, and again, a pattern for us after-Easter Christians to follow.
How did the New Testament come to be written in Greek, by the way? Greek was the koine, the common language of the day. Hebrew was the language of the Hebrew scribes and scholars, while Aramaic was the language ordinary Jewish people spoke at home. Latin was the language of the Roman government, the language of law and official documents. (Remember how Pilate had the notice on Jesus’ cross written in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, so everyone passing by could read it?) But koine Greek was the language of trade and commerce and the marketplace, spoken all over the world – perfect for sharing Good News!
The koina comes up again in our reading from First John. Apostle John, faithful pastor that he was, was reminding his people again, for the umpteenth time, about how the Gospel of Jesus is the most important and indispensable thing in the world. The man had seen Jesus – lived and walked with Him, seen His miracles, and watched as He was crucified; then He was blessed to put His own fingers into Jesus’ wounds, after He was raised from the dead. By the time 1st John was written, and he was the only left on earth who had. “This we proclaim concerning the Word of Life,” John writes, “so that you also may have fellowship – koina – with us.” Our fellowship, our koina, our unity, our oneness, says John, is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ; and our joy won’t be complete, full, or satisfied until you come to share the joy with us.
And the only requirement for fellowship and membership in the Christian Church, according to John, is to “come into the Light.” That is, to make an honest admission of sins, make a good confession, and have a willingness to come out of the darkness of sin and into God’s “marvelous light.” “Whoever lives by the truth comes into the Light,” Jesus says. If we claim to have fellowship, oneness, koina, with Jesus, says John, yet continue to walk in the darkness – that is, to continue to live in unconfessed sin – then we’re only liars and hypocrites, not doing or practicing or living by the truth. “And what fellowship, what koina, can light have with darkness?” Jesus says.
But if we come to walk in the light, as Jesus is in the light – if we confess our sins out loud before God and one another - then we have a basis for blessed fellowship with one another. If anyone claims they’ve never committed a sin, or that they have no sins that need to be forgiven or washed away, that’s a ridiculous, silly, self-delusional lie; and what can God do with a person like that? What unites us, what we have in common, despite whatever differences we might have otherwise, is believing that Jesus has given Himself to forgive us all. We’re all “sinners saved by grace.”
But my dear children, good pastor Apostle John says, if you are feeling bad about your sins (and you should!), remember always that you have Jesus Christ as your defender, your Advocate before God the Father to speak in your defense. Jesus has made the atoning sacrifice you need, His very own blood, and He lives to forgive you and give you life. Confess His name, and in that you’ll find all the power and grace you need to live as a child of God in this after-Easter world.
Those early Christians were living at the very beginning of the Christian Church on earth. They had a battle ahead of them to live, grow, and thrive in the world, and persecutions ahead they’d have to face. You and I are living in what people are calling the “post-Christian era,” at a time when it looks like the end may be coming soon. We who still believe and teach a real cross and resurrected Jesus are becoming more and more rare. Have you noticed we’re vastly outnumbered these days? A recent poll I read asked people about their religious affiliation. All the major religions, churches and denominations were listed; Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Muslim, Buddhist, and so on. And the last choice on the list was “none” -no religious affiliation at all. The fastest growing demographic in this country is the “nones.” We after-Easter Christians have our own battle to fight and a lot of work to do.
In our Gospel reading this morning, the after-Easter disciples are struggling with what to do next. Their blessed fellowship, their koina, has been broken. Jesus is dead, and Judas has gone off and hung himself. Thomas isn’t there, and we’re not told where he might have gone. The rest of them are cowering behind locked doors, afraid of the Jews, afraid the officers and soldiers will be knocking on the door and coming for them next.
Then suddenly Jesus is standing there in the room with them, saying, “Peace to you.” He shows them His hands and side, and the marks left by the nails and the sword. They get to touch those places, and they find Him to be warm and full of life, to their great joy. Then Jesus gives them their sending, their calling, their after-Easter mission. He breathes on them and gives them the breath of life, the Holy Spirit, and all the power the Spirit contains. As Jesus once breathed the breath of life into Adam, now He breathes the breath of new life into these disciples of His. (It’s at this point that they become apostles, “ones who are sent,” rather than just ordinary disciples, “ones who sit and listen.”) And Jesus gives them - and by extension He gives to His Church forever - the power, authority, and grace to forgive sins. He gives them the power to call people out of the darkness and into the Light, so they can know the joy of being forgiven and saved. Church, that’s who we are, that’s what we do, that’s what we’re doing here.
I found something new (new to me anyway) as I studied the Greek in this passage this week, something I just had to share with you. The Greek word for “forgive?” It turns out to be apheta.” Do you know what it means? It means, “to send away.” Isn’t that just awesome? To forgive sins means to send them away. That means our sins aren’t just forgiven, but gone forever. “I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more,” the Lord says. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed our sins from us.” Jesus, when He appeared to those disciples in the upper room, could have railed at them, condemned them for their sins, destroyed them all for their sin of abandoning Him. But instead He gave them a blessing of peace and sent their sins far away.
Now Thomas, who seems to have been the Negative Nancy of the group, had the misfortune of not being there in the room when Jesus brought the blessing of peace. He didn’t get to hear the Good News of forgiveness, or that Jesus had sent all his sins far away. The other disciples, all full of joy, tried to tell him the Good News, but Thomas the doubter wasn’t having any of it. "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were,” he stubbornly said, “and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it." Our world is still full of Thomases who refuse to believe unless the proof is right before their eyes - and maybe not even then. You probably know some of them. The world is full of doubters and skeptics and “nones.” Our mission as after-Easter people is to be kind and patient with the doubters; not to push them away from our fellowship, but to do the best we can to try to love them in.
That seems to be what Thomas’s friends did for him. They didn’t throw him out of the room or expel him from the group for not believing. They loved him enough to put up with his doubting, grumpiness, and negativity. How do we know that? A week later, he was still with them - doubts, denials, bad attitude, and all. If they’d thrown him out, would he have been there to get a second chance? Never assume the Lord is finished with someone. Never write anyone off. God works in ways we don’t know, and in places we can’t see. Keep loving, keep praying. Miracles appear in the strangest of places.
“A week later his disciples were in the house again,” says our Gospel, “and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’” His friends didn’t give up on Thomas, and Jesus didn’t either. He did a reprise of the whole wonderful Easter Day scene, just for Thomas’s sake. In spite of his doubts and his stubborn, ornery soul, Jesus reached out to the man and gave him the same generous offer He’d made to the others a week before: "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe." And his doubts fell away. He made the good confession, “My Lord and my God!” And his sins were also carried far away. A week late, perhaps, but does that even matter? It doesn’t matter when you come, so long as you do.
Jesus does have a bit of a rebuke for the man, but it’s one that applies to us all. "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." The apostles who led the early Church had seen Jesus face to face, and many others were still living who’d seen Him as well. You and I, living in these latter days, and in this post-Christian era, don’t have that blessing. What we do have, though, is God’s written Word, written by those apostles with Holy Spirit’s help and aid as a witness to us. (It’s been translated into English for us, thank goodness, and into many different languages for everyone to read). And we’re blessed to have the same good Holy Spirit, who brings us to faith as we read the good Word and helps us to believe it. But we’ll have to wait to see Jesus for ourselves until He comes to us again. One day we’ll get to touch His scars for ourselves, but not today.
And that brings us back to our original question: If Jesus has died and now lives for us, how do we go about living for Him? Now that He’s been raised, how is our Savior asking us to live, and what is He calling us to do? What we’re here to do is take hold of the work of the Kingdom begun all those years ago and carry it forward. Those first Christians had the koina, the fellowship of faith, love, and grace; and that fellowship has now come down to us; and it’s ours to guard, preserve, and keep alive, and to offer to the world around us in these times we’re living in. By the time Jesus comes, God’s Church on earth may well be reduced to being as small as it was at the first; but that’s in God’s hands, and so are we. Our place in all this, right here where we are, is to keep the faith, and to keep ourselves in blessed fellowship with God and His Son, until Jesus comes to carry us home.
“But these are written,” John says, “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” So Father in Heaven, help us to do this. Help us to be faithful to our calling and faithful to our Lord, as we “hold out the Word of Life to the world.” Father, keep us in everlasting fellowship with You, as we, Your after-Easter people, bring our world the Good News: Alleluia! Christ is risen! Alleluia! He is risen indeed! Amen.