Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the Gospel according to Luke, the 24th chapter:
As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them. Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! But the disciples didn’t really know that. Now we’ve been going over the Easter texts these last three weeks, but for the disciples, everything that we’ve covered, Mary going to the tomb, Thomas and the locked room, now Jesus eating and inviting them to see Him risen physically from the grave, this all happened in the first week.
The disciples are therefore afraid. They haven’t had weeks to process the information that Jesus’ body is missing from the tomb, they’ve had hours. They haven’t had time to figure out that Jesus is the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah, they’ve been trembling too much.
So, these two guys, disciples who had been going from Jerusalem to Emmaus, bust into the place where the disciples are hiding, which has got to be scary in its own right, and they tell them that they just broke bread with Jesus. There’s no way, right? They must’ve been imagining it. But, they talked about it. They questioned the disciples. They couldn’t believe it.
But, Jesus has this habit of when people can’t believe that He can do something, He does it. The Pharisees told Him He couldn’t heal on the Sabbath day. He did. They told Him He couldn’t claim to be the Son of God or they’d stone Him. He did. They tried. He walked away without a single stone hitting Him. They told Him He couldn’t forgive sins. So, to show that He could, He told a paralyzed man to walk, and he did.
See, Jesus shows up when we just can’t believe that it’s all real. He shows up often when we least expect Him. And He shows up to show us that He truly can do all that He has promised.
And so Jesus shows up for the disciples, in the middle of a locked room. It’s as if the disciples were huddled together in the corner, away from the doors and the windows so that no one else would hear, and then, right in the middle of the huddle, Jesus has His head in there, saying, “Hey guys! How’s it going?” Quite the sight. Startling, scary. You can imagine the disciples falling over themselves.
But, Jesus didn’t really say, “Hey.” He says to them what He always says to sinners, to doubters: “Peace.” Now, we’re not talking the hippie peace of the 60s. We’re not throwing two fingers in the air and waving them around like we just don’t care. No, when Jesus speaks Peace, it happens. Remember, this Jesus is the Word of God, the Word that came forth from the Father’s mouth. And when the Word was spoken, the universe obeyed. When God said, “Let there be light,” there was. Everything God speaks happens.
So, when Jesus speaks peace to the disciples, it comes. Yet, they were frightened still. Why so? As in all things with the Lord, we can certainly reject His gifts. The disciples could not, would not believe that Jesus was risen from the grave, and so they could not have peace. They rejected His peace here because they wanted more to cling to the fear that they felt. It is like a person, sitting in a dark room, unable to move for fear of the darkness, asking another to turn on the light switch. But when that switch flips, the person who has been all alone and afraid refuses to open their eyes. This is the very picture of our disciples here.
But notice that Jesus doesn’t make fun of them, He doesn’t get angry. He merely asks why they are so afraid. And what does He do? He points to Himself. “See my hands. See my feet. You notice the holes? Not many people got holes in their hands and feet. Not many people with holes in their hands and feet would be walking around on them. You’ve seen Me. You know Me. You know what happened to me. Don’t I look like Myself? Don’t I look like the Crucified One? And if I am the Crucified One, and I’m standing before you, then I must also be the Risen One.”
And this is all well and good, but what if this just a spirit, a ghost? Now, the disciples didn’t believe like some crazy people today do that when you die, maybe you’re stuck on earth, wandering around as some kind of spirit. But, they do believe, as we believe, teach, and confess, that the evil angels, the demons that fell with Satan, can take on appearances of departed ones, take on shapes, possess people, haunt places. So, perhaps this thing standing before them is a ghost, a demon, taking on the appearance of their beloved Jesus. After all, He just appeared in the middle of the room, not opening any doors, not sneaking in through the window, not busting down through the roof.
But, no. Jesus won’t let them believe such a thing. For the angels are spirits, and spirits do not have hands to hold, feet to kiss. Angels do not eat. So, what does our Risen Lord ask for? A little piece of fish. He doesn’t eat it because He’s hungry; He eats it so that they may see and believe that He is Jesus, literally in the flesh, brought back to life for the joy of the Father and the faith of all who would believe.
And do the disciples believe? They see, they hear, they touch. They believe. But, when it says they disbelieved for joy, this is as if it were to say, “This is too good to be true.” And this is good for us to see, because our Jesus is not too good to be true. He is too true to be false. He is too good to be false. So, while they looked at Him, and wondered at Him, He opened up their minds to hear what the Scriptures had to say. After all, if you have doubts about Jesus, the one place to go to understand who He is, what He’s done, is the Law of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; the Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi; and the Psalms, which would have included Joshua, Judges, Ruth, First Samuel, Second Samuel, First Kings, Second Kings, First Chronicles, Second Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon.
Here our Lord shows the disciples that all of the Old Testament pointed to Him. When it says that the Redeemer shall stand upon the earth, so He will. When it says that a greater prophet than Moses would come, so He has. When it says that He was stricken, smitten, and afflicted, so He would be. The Messiah of the Old Testament is Christ, and Jesus showed this to His Apostles. He proved it by pointing to the Scriptures and Himself, nothing else.
And this is good for us today, for today we do not see Jesus bodily before us. He has not come into this room with His hands waving and eating fish. But He is here in a very real way. Because He appeared to His disciples, and they have given to us His Words, His promises, we may have the very same confidence that our Lord is who He said He was. Because we have the same Old Testament, and now we have the Epistles, the Gospels, and the writings of the New Testament, we may have even more confidence than the disciples.
We need not fear that Jesus has left us. We should not feel as if the disciples had something better than we do when it comes to Jesus. We shouldn’t feel envious of their walking and talking with Him. For indeed, we have the same thing.
See, Jesus shows up when we just can’t believe that it’s all real. He shows up often when we least expect Him. And He shows up to show us that He truly can do all that He has promised. In a locked room, with the doors and the windows closed, Jesus appears to us and speaks peace. He does this as we invoke the name of the Triune God, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” He speaks peace and we need not fear Him. God is not here to kill us; He is here to comfort us. And He does so in His Absolution, when by the command and in the authority of Jesus Christ, I forgive you all of your sins. I do it in His name; my voice is Jesus’ voice there. It is for you. You are forgiven, though you fear, though you doubt, though you do not understand.
Then, we teach. We read the Scriptures: Old Testament, Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles. And we sing the Scriptures. Every hymn we sing comes directly from the Scriptures. And we teach the Scriptures in the sermon. And we pray the Scriptures in our prayers. The entirety of the Scripture is unlocked to us, for Jesus has opened our minds by faith to understand and comprehend them.
And just as Jesus appeared in the middle of a locked room, just by His divine power from on high, He did this miraculous thing, so, too, does He also come to us in mere bread and wine. He, by being God by His very nature, comes to us in a way we do not understand, but that we trust by faith. He comes to us in, with, and under the bread and the wine, and why? As He said in the Upper Room that Maundy Thursday: for the forgiveness of our sins. And this, all of this leads us to the very resurrection of Christ, which is our own. This is the medicine of immortality, for as Jesus lives, so you will live, for I am risen from the grave only if He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
You see, we need not fear Jesus. He comes in peace, not to destroy us. He is real, His real blood, His real body, for you. He is not some spirit who desires to haunt you, torment you. He desires to pull you close to Him, to have you with Him. We need not doubt Jesus. He is real, and He has shown Himself to the disciples, and He continues to give Himself for us today. He comes to us in Word. And He comes to us in Sacrament, the Holy Things of the Church, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.
But if we do fear, if we do doubt, Jesus still speaks peace to us. He wants us to believe in Him, trust Him, believe His words, be His witnesses to the entire world of His forgiveness. You see, there is much work to do for Jesus, not because it is going to save us, but because we have been saved.
We go to the world proclaiming the Good News of Christ Jesus, which is that He has lived, died, and resurrected for the forgiveness of your sins, and the sins of the whole world. We do this because the Lord, in our Baptisms, has made us children of God, and this gift is for all people.
Yet, even when we fail to do so, there is still peace for us. Just as when we fear, just as when we doubt, Jesus speaks peace to you. He says to you, “You are forgiven. I have forgiven you. You have been washed by Me, you have been fed by me, you have even drank what I have given to you. This is forgiveness. Trust Me, I forgive you.” And we take Jesus at His Word. For if He can speak peace to men who abandoned Him in His suffering, He can speak peace to you, to your heart, to all the doubt and fear you have. He can speak peace, and He does, for you are His own. You are the witness to His resurrection, for here, in this place, you have seen Him, you have tasted Him, you have heard Him. He is here for you, for indeed, He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia! In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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