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Pastor Tom Steers on April 7, 2024

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THE SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

April 7, 2024

Pastor Tom Steers

Christ the Saviour Lutheran Church, Toronto

OPENING HYMNN: 467 “Awake My Heart with Gladness”

Lutheran Service Book

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vkwarcV5kI

Pastor: Halleluiah, Christ is risen!

Congregation: He is risen indeed. Halleluiah!

Confession and Absolution Page 184-185 of our Hymnal

The Verse (from Romans 6:9; John 20:29b)

Alleluia. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. Alleluia.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. Alleluia.

The Salutation – Pastor: The Lord be with you. Congregation: And also with you.

Collect Prayer: Almighty God, grant that we who have celebrated the Lord’s resurrection may by Your grace confess in our life and conversation that Jesus is Lord and God; through the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Our Bible Readings:

First Reading – Acts 5:29-42

Psalm 148 (antiphon: v.13)

Epistle Reading – 1st Peter 1:3-9

Gospel Reading – John 20:19-31

THE APOSTLES’ CREED Page 192

HYMN OF THE DAY: 472 “These Things Did Thomas Count As Real”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAVqBN7UR0

THE SERMON –

What do we do when we doubt?

Who do we turn to?

What’s the solution?

Doubt is something almost every Christian faces at some point in their life -- and that non-Christians deal with constantly.

In times of difficulty, of crisis, thoughts as to whether God has abandoned us can plague people, whether we admit it or not.

So, it may seem ironic that after the joy of Easter we have these Gospel verses from John about the doubt of his fellow Apostle, Thomas.

But it’s an appropriate lesson, then, and now.

It was on the Sunday after the resurrection that Jesus returned to see Thomas.

The issues that day some 2,000 years ago, and now, are the same.

Do we believe, and when we doubt who will rescue us?

The Gospel text at verse 19 begins on the night of resurrection Sunday.

Now to be fair to Thomas, at this point all the Apostles were doubters.

They are inside with doors locked.

They’re afraid the same authorities that crucified Jesus have them next on their list.

They have serious and painful doubts because their beloved teacher had been executed and placed in a tomb two days before.

For the Apostles, that night was filled with fear and grief.

Jesus changes that in an instant.

In His glorified, resurrection body, He passes right through the walls or door and stands before them.

Instead of a reproach for abandoning Him when He was arrested, instead of scolding them for a weak faith that ignored His promise to rise again, Christ comes and says, “Peace be with you.”

Peace, because through His blood shed for us there is forgiveness.

Jesus doesn’t make the disciples come to Him on bended knee.

He doesn’t force them to earn their way back into His good graces.

Christ extends grace and mercy.

He offers forgiveness and love.

He knows exactly what they’re missing, what they’re suffering from.

And that’s a lack of peace . . . peace of mind, peace within their hearts, because they’ve allowed doubt to overcome the Word Jesus left them before He was crucified.

Christ shows the disciples the wounds in His hands and side.

And He says again after revealing the cost of their salvation, the bodily evidence of His crucifixion, “Peace be with you.”

Thomas wasn’t there that night.

He doesn’t see Jesus and His wounds.

And because he wasn’t there, he doesn’t believe it when the other disciples tell him Jesus is alive.

Thomas is thinking as the other disciples had been.

He’s thinking as a human being.

People, Thomas must have thought, simply don’t come back from the dead.

The only person in fact who could raise the dead, Jesus, had Himself been placed in a tomb.

But God the Son can be raised, and was raised from the dead, by God the Father.

Thomas learns this one week later.

The disciples are again behind locked doors.

John tells us Thomas is now present.

It’s the Sunday after Easter, just as it is today.

Again, Christ enters miraculously.

Standing among them He says once more, “Peace be with you.”

He’s not angry, He doesn’t berate Thomas.

He simply, even humbly says see my wounds, put your hand out, and see the evidence you’ve asked for.

Don’t doubt, believe.

And now Thomas comes out with one of the most powerful and direct Gospel pronouncements in the Bible -- he says, “My Lord, and my God.”

Each of us in our own lives at times of grief, pain, or sadness, has asked for God to prove Himself.

We try in our human frailty to make a deal with God, and say, “If You will do this or that for me, I’ll believe.”

If you prove Your love God, and care for me in the way I want or feel I need, then I’ll have faith in you.

But when we do this, we’re left with a question:

Is this faith? Is it trust? Are we responding to God in the way He wants us to?

Because what we in the Bible, again and again, is the crucial importance of faith and trust to God.

When Jesus healed, He often told the person, “Your faith has healed You.”

In the Old Testament it was when Israel abandoned their faith in the true God and followed idols that the Almighty turned away from them, for a time.

Human reason can itself become an idol when we use it to test the Almighty, even test God’s existence.

We forget that God created us, and human reason.

Not the other way around.

When we ask the question, “Why,” that we all do at times,

when we expect God to behave in ways we believe are correct,

when we can’t see the logic or reasoning behind God’s actions, or what appears to us to be His inaction –

we need to ask another question:

How large or small do we want our God to be?

Do we expect a God that we always understand?

Would that even be God?

When we remember that we’re dealing with our Creator, the Creator of the universe to whom we’re answerable, we can say together with the Biblical Job: “Surely I have spoken of things I do not understand.”

Or as God asks in the Bible -- Am I not the potter and you the clay?

We forget that we are God’s beloved children, and that He is the eternal Father.

He loved us so much He sent His only Son to die on the cross so we could be reconciled to Him.

But God’s love doesn’t mean that we’re free to always put Him to the test.

To make Him answerable to us.

Fortunately, His patience is far beyond ours, and He comes to us, as He came to the disciples in their room, and came to Thomas.

He comes to us today in His Word and Sacraments – the means of grace.

He comes to us and pulls our hearts and minds to Him, and to faith through the Holy Spirit.

For the disciples it happened the night Jesus breathed on them and said: “receive the Holy Spirit.”

Just before that He said to them, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.”

Disciples are those who follow.

Christ was telling the disciples that they’ve now become Apostles, which means ones sent with a message.

He tells us, His body of believers in the world today, His beloved Church: I am sending You, I am turning to you to spread my Word and make believers of all people, all nations.

The power that God provides to do that is the Holy Spirit, it’s not our own.

In that same conversation with the Apostles, Christ institutes what we call the office of the keys – the ability of the Church to forgive sins in His name.

And forgiveness here is central.

For as Martin Luther wrote, where there is forgiveness, there is life and salvation.

Yet in our own night of doubt or pain, even about our sins, who can we turn to?

We turn to Jesus.

We find Him in His Word, His Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and in His fellowship of believers here in the true Church.

He never wanted us to be alone and in doubt.

He calls us to care for one another, and for those still left in darkness, perpetual doubt.

Those who live in the locked room of faithlessness and fear, not knowing that the gift of forgiveness and eternal life is waiting for them.

Tragically, so many young people today, so many children, are raised in homes where they’re never taught about Christ, never brought to His Church.

But Jesus longs to save them.

The Church still has the mission, the Great Commission given to us by Christ.

Today God sends us, His believers, to people in spiritual need.

He gives us His peace so we can spread that Word of peace with God through Christ to others.

When we suffer, and at times when we doubt, we are not alone.

There is always the crucified and risen Saviour who’s there with us, and will never leave us.

Along with Thomas, we can look to Jesus and thankfully say, ‘My Lord, and my God.’

Amen.

PRAYERS OF THE CHURCH

THE SERVICE OF THE SACRAMENT

P: Blessed are You O Lord, our God, king of the universe, for you have had mercy on us and given Your only-begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

C: We give You thanks Father for the redemption You have prepared for us through Jesus Christ. Grant us Your Holy Spirit that we may faithfully take communion and receive the blessings of forgiveness, life, and salvation that come from the body and blood of Christ.

P: Father, hear us as we pray as Jesus taught us.

THE LORDS PRAYER

C: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Preface

P: The Lord be with you.

C: And also with you.

P: Lift up your hearts.

C: We lift them to the Lord.

P: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

C: It is right to give Him thanks and praise.

P: It is truly meet, right, and salutary, that we should at all times, and in all places, give thanks to you, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty and Everlasting God.

For in the mystery of the Word made flesh, You have given us a new revelation of Your glory; that seeing You in the Person of Your Son, we may be drawn to the love of those things which are not seen.

THE WORDS OF OUR SAVIOUR

INSTITUTING THE LORD`S SUPPER

P: The peace of the Lord be with you always.

C: Amen.

Lamb of God (Agnus Dei)

P: Lamb of God You take away the sin of the world,

C: Have mercy on us.

P: Lamb of God You take away the sin of the world,

C: Have mercy on us.

P: Lamb of God You take away the sin of the world,

C: Grant us peace.

The Distribution