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Alleluia! ΙΗϹ Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

᛭ INI ᛭

(5. Oops!: We believe but are not too confident of the resurrection.)

The disciples were not all that confident in Christ’s resurrection. He’d told them He would, but not a single one of them was waiting at the tomb. They feared for their lives, and were locked away at an undisclosed location in and around Jerusalem…. Even after they saw Christ, they still weren’t all that confident. A week later still the same—locked away. They were glad to see the Lord and then lacked any sort of confidence. You, too!

That’s the hard truth. We “know,” we believe that Christ “rose again according to the Scriptures.” But we’re mousey about it. Silent about it most of the time. Because well, we’re scared. We lack confidence in it. We’re not bold. We don’t want to stick our necks out for it…

(4. Ugh!: There can be a spiral of sin and doubt and fear!)

It’s worse than that, though. Our life can be an inward spiral of doubt and fear, of sin and shame. Where our doubt and fear is constantly at odds with our knowledge that Christ is truly risen from the dead. We get all topsy-turvy mixed up. Endless anxiety. Lack of true confidence—though there may be some outward, superficial bravado.

The swirl of lack of confidence breeds anxiety not only that, but it perpetuates sin. It is of course sin in itself not to “fear, love, and trust in God above ALL things.” But the spiral of fear and doubt leads to other sins of weakness and shame. Shame not only over daily sins, but the sins of our past. (It’s why so many don’t even want to read the Word of God, it will bring this all out in us.)

Besides all that, it doesn’t quite matter whatever kind of way it is that we spin out into lack of confidence. Christ knows the whole thing! So it was that Christ knew what Thomas had demanded even though it seemed Christ wasn’t there at all. (The omnipresence of God is not necessarily a comfort…)

(3. Aha!: BEING IN THE PRESENCE OF THE RISEN CHRIST’S WOUNDED FLESH GIVES PEACE.)

But what can break this spiral? The spiral into greater and greater confidencelessness—turning a lack of confidence into a complete and total lack of all faith? It’s only Christ who breaks this spiral from doubt to unbelief. He alone can recall one back from unbelief to faith! “Be not unbelieving but believing!” So Thomas was! “My Lord and My God,” he confesses.

Christ alone interrupts the sinful spiral, but how does He do it? It has to do with what you see Him do in John 20. It’s no voice from heaven saying, “Get with the program.” It’s not the women nagging them into greater action. No, Christ Himself shows up with a word and sign. “Peace to you” He says, “Then He showed them His hands and His side. Then disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. So, too, Thomas when Christ did it a week later.

To summarize these two encounters as St. John records them:

BEING IN THE PRESENCE OF THE RISEN CHRIST’S WOUNDED FLESH GIVES PEACE.

(2. Whee!: This is the cycle of the Christian life.)

BEING IN THE PRESENCE OF THE RISEN CHRIST’S WOUNDED FLESH GIVES PEACE, and this is not a one-and-done sort of thing. This is proved by the fact that Christ appeared to all the Eleven both times and didn’t just find Thomas on His own. John also includes a third time Christ appeared to Peter, Nathanael, Thomas, John, and James, and two other disciples. In fact, He appeared many times to them over the 40 days between His resurrection and Ascension.

This creates a cycle for the Christian life. Where there is a constant pattern of being in Christ’s presence, for only there do you find peace. There’s no peace in yourself or your own confidence or boldness or Christian faith. There’s only peace in Christ. “He Himself is your peace” (Eph 1), “making peace by the blood of His cross.” (Col 2) But not only that He gives the Word of Peace and Reconciliation, “that God in Christ was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” (2 Cor 5)

He give the preaching of the Gospel—“speaking peace to those who are far and peace to those who are near.” (Eph 2) He also gives Holy Absolution: “I forgive you…depart in peace!” But Christ’s WORD of peace is not separated from His holy wounds. For it is BEING IN THE PRESENCE OF THE RISEN CHRIST’S WOUNDED FLESH that GIVES PEACE. So here He delivers His body given for you, His blood shed for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.

There is peace here. Isn’t there? Your faith, your life, for future all seem well and in place here. For “where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them,” He says. (Mt 18) But out there, yes “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Heb 13) Indeed, “Christ lives in your hearts by faith.” (Eph 3) And yet you’re bombarded by the world and your sin and your lack of confidence and worry and doubt! But here BEING IN THE PRESENCE OF THE RISEN CHRIST’S WOUNDED FLESH GIVES PEACE.

Only He will work boldness and gladness and confidence in heart and mind and action. But the cycle of there restlessness, here peace, is just another way of saying the Christian life is one of repentance and faith. Yes, it’s daily thing that the Spirit works, fulfilling His baptismal promise. But it also involves coming into the presence of the Lord. As even King David sings about the anxiety of his heart when he saw the prosperity of the wicked and his own troubles: “When I thought how to understand this, It was too painful for me—Until I went into the sanctuary of God; Then I understood their end.” (Ps 73) In the Lord’s house was the Word and Sacrifices for David, in the same the Word and Promises are here in this Lord’s house.

(1. Yeah!: The cycle will be ultimately broken on the Last Day.)

When will the cycle come to an end? The cycle of on the one hand being in the World and having anxiety and sin and lack of confidence and on the other of BEING IN THE PRESENCE OF THE RISEN CHRIST’S WOUNDED FLESH GIVing PEACE? That cycle may not end in this life. It might. It might not. Indeed Paul says, “we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead, 10 who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us, 11 you also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many.” (2 Cor 1)

That cycle will only come to an end in everlasting life, but why? Well, again, BEING IN THE PRESENCE OF THE RISEN CHRIST’S WOUNDED FLESH GIVES PEACE. And in everlasting life you will always be in the presence of His wounded flesh. For, as John sees in Revelation, “I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain.” (Rev 5)

And so, in this life it is a cycle: BEING IN THE PRESENCE OF THE RISEN CHRIST’S WOUNDED FLESH GIVES PEACE. But one day, it will be forever!

Alleluia! ΙΗϹ Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

᛭ INI ᛭