It
wasn’t a ghost that came into the room where the disciples were
hiding. It wasn’t a mass hallucination or some sort of
projected image of the disciples’ wish-fulfillment. It was
Jesus. Jesus, the one Judas had betrayed just four days
earlier. Jesus, who had been mocked and tortured and then had
died on a Cross after suffering unspeakable agony. Jesus,
crucified, dead and buried and sealed up in the tomb. Jesus,
whom the disciples had never expected to see again.
It
was Jesus. In the flesh. In the body. Inviting the disciples to
look at the wounds in His hands and feet. Inviting them to touch
Him with their hands and gaze upon Him with their eyes, to see and
be convinced that it was indeed Jesus Himself. After all, a ghost
does not have flesh and bones, as they could plainly see that
Jesus had.
The
risen Lord showed the disciples the wounds in His hands and feet,
the marks of His crucifixion. And when they still couldn’t
believe because of their joy and amazement, He asked them for
something to eat. They gave Him a piece of broiled fish and He
took it and ate it in their presence. All told, it was very
unghostlike behavior Jesus displayed before the eyes of His
disciples that evening. What honest-to-goodness spirit would eat
a piece of fish?
St.
John and the other evangelists make it very plain that the
resurrection of our Lord was a literal, bodily resurrection. The
body in which the Son of God became Incarnate when He was
conceived by the Holy Spirit was the very same body that came out
of the tomb that first Easter morning. The body born of the
Virgin Mary was the same body now standing before the disciples’
startled eyes in the upper room. The body that had been nourished
by His mother’s milk and had grown strong and tall on her good
Galilean cooking was the same body that took and ate the piece of
broiled fish. The body that had been nailed to a Roman Cross on
Friday was the same living body displaying the wounds of
crucifixion to the disciples on Sunday.
Forget this nonsense about the resurrection being some sort of
spiritual event indicating nothing more than that Jesus lived on
in the memory of His disciples. Pffflllttt on that! No!
It was Jesus Himself who lived on, in the flesh, in the body, true
God and true Man, the Victor over sin, death and hell, the Savior
of the world, the one Mediator who reconciles you and me to God.
The
Scripture says, God was in Christ reconciling the world to
Himself, not counting their sins against them. The
resurrection of Jesus Christ is God’s signature on the dotted line
saying His Son’s work of salvation is completely accomplished.
God doesn’t count our sins against us because on the Cross those
sins were put on Jesus. Jesus became the atoning sacrifice to pay
for those sins. How far is the east from the west? A right fur
piece, you might say, and that’s how far our Savior Jesus Christ
has removed our sin from us.
To be
sure, sins we have, and we have them in abundance. If we
claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not
in us. That “we” refers to Christians, who despite their
status as the children of God still struggle against the burden of
the sinful nature.
Martin Luther recognized the dual reality in which we Christians
live in this fallen sinful world. The Christian, Luther said, is
simul iustis et peccator, that is simultaneously saint and
sinner. According to the evil fallen nature inherited from Adam –
the nature that doesn’t fear God and despises His Word – we are
sinner through and through. I know that nothing good dwells
within me, St. Paul says of himself. We don’t fear, love
and trust in God as He commands us to. We don’t call upon His
Name in prayer with the fervency and frequency and devotion proper
to His children. We fail to praise and thank Him adequately for
all His benefits that we so easily forget. We see other things as
more important than gladly hearing and learning His Word. And
what’s worse we think that God Himself is okay with our
lackadaisical attitude to prayer and to His holy Word.
The
hard and fast evidence of our lack of fear, love and trust in God
is our failure to keep His commandments. Even when we try our
hardest, we still mess up. Thoughts and fantasies we’d blush for
anyone to know about surge through our minds. Harsh, unloving
words we can’t take back come from our lips. Idolatries of money
or status or pleasure crowd devotion to God out of our hearts. It
happens so easily. It happens sometimes without our being aware
of it. It happens because we are sinners. We fall short of the
glory of God and go sprawling headlong in the mud of our sin and
unrighteousness every day of our lives. There is none who
is righteous; no, not one.
That’s the reality of being a sinner. That’s the reality of being
by nature an object of God’s wrath. That’s the reality that would
drag us and our whole world down to hell in smoke and unending
flame -- if it weren’t for another, greater reality.
That
other greater reality was on display before the disciples in
today’s Gospel. The reality of Jesus Christ, crucified and
resurrected for the sins of the world. The reality of God so
loving this world of sinful men, women, and children that He gave
His only begotten Son over to the death of the Cross. This
is My Son, whom I love, the Father spoke from heaven at
Jesus’ Baptism. And yet out of love for us sinners, God became
His beloved Son’s worst enemy when all the sins of all the world
were heaped on Jesus as He hung on the Cross. Jesus was punished
as the sinner in our place.
There
was not one sin Jesus did not suffer and die for. There was not
one sin Jesus did not completely atone for. There was not one
sinner – no matter how gross and disgusting and teeming with the
maggots of iniquity he or she may be – that Jesus did not endure
God’s wrath for. Our Savior went to the Cross on behalf of
sinners to reconcile them to God. How do you know He died for
you? Well if you’re a sinner, then you qualify.
God
treated His Son like the worst kind of sinner so He could treat
you like adearly beloved son. Though you know your sin all too
well, God calls you a saint because of your Baptism into Christ’s
death and resurrection. By His grace God declares you righteous
through faith in Jesus. He forgives you because Jesus’ has
forever taken your sins away by His sufferings and death on the
Cross. You now have peace with God through faith in Christ. In
the Gospel your Savior Jesus says, Peace be with you,
just as surely as He greeted His disciples with the same
message of peace on the evening of His resurrection.
The
peace of God which passes all understanding guards and keeps us in
our Savior Jesus Christ. Faith simply believes the message of
peace spoken to us in the Gospel. Faith knows this gracious
message is bigger than our sins. Indeed it wipes away our sins,
because it’s the message about the Lamb of God whose work is to
take away the sin of the world by shedding the holy blood that
purifies us from all sin.
The
Gospel message of Christ crucified is more real than anything in
this world. It’s the reality of a crucified and risen Savior who
loves you and forgives you. It’s the reality that the resurrected
Christ has shattered the bars of death, so they can’t hold you in
the grave but must give way before His reappearing on the Last
Day. The Gospel is as real as God’s Triune Name placed on you in
your Baptism. It’s as real as Christ’s Body and Blood given to you
to eat and drink in the Sacrament of the Altar. It’s as real as
the forgiveness of sins which is at the heart and center of the
Christian proclamation.
And
it was all on display in the risen Lord who showed His disciples
His hands and feet, invited them to touch Him, and who then ate
the piece of fish they gave Him. This is the fulfillment of
everything promised in the Scriptures about the Seed of the woman
who would crush the serpent’s head through His own sufferings and
death. It’s true. It’s real. It’s as real as the flesh and bones
that our Lord assured His disciples that He had, since He had
risen from the dead and was not a ghost.
You
participate in the saving benefits of Jesus’ death through Holy
Baptism and eating and drinking His Body and Blood in humble,
penitent faith. You participate in His resurrection victory
because Scripture says you’ve been made a new creation in Christ.
And on the Last Day, when Jesus comes again, you will be united
with Him in a resurrection like His, and your flesh and bones
decayed by death will be made eternally new, eternally strong,
eternally glorified. And eternally alive, you will dwell in the
glory of the Lord forever. Christ’s resurrection guarantees it.
So
don’t ever think of the Christian Faith as something shadowy and
vaporous and spiritual, the stuff of séances and table rapping.
It’s not. The holy Christian Faith is as real as the living flesh
and bones of Jesus the disciples indisputably saw that first
Easter evening. It’s as real as the Cross and empty tomb. It’s
as real as your Baptism and the Holy Supper. It’s as real as
Jesus Himself, the eternal Victor over sin, death and hell, for
you.
In Nomine Patris. . .
