John 20:19-23
Notes
Transcript
There was a season that I was between jobs and I was working at a small coolant plant that my dad owned down in Saint Bernard. Close to the zoo for those of you who are often on that side of town. I would need to be there pretty early, and the later I left the more traffic I would encounter. So one day I left fairly early which is not out of the ordinary for me. I do have this bad habit of wanting to be places absurdly early. I was sitting in my car with the light on about to do one of my favorite things…dive into an egg and sausage McMuffin, with a hashbrown and a coffee…Does it get any better can I get an Amen! Okay its just me then. So its dark outside and the light is on in my car so I cant see anything…I imagin I am all lone parked amongs unused industrial equipment in not the best part of town when Knock knock knock..bahh!!
It was the main warehouse employee…he was also absurdly early. And he scared all the stuffing out of me. I couldnt see him till he was right on the window because of how the light was arranged.
11 disciples sitting in a room where the door is locked, wondering if the political leadership was gonna come hand the to the Romans for Flogging must have been a little on edge…and suddenly there is a 12th person there…I imagine they would have been pretty scared…the door is locked…this person looks like Jesus but every one say him dead…plus its just scary to have someone appear…
All of that said todays account is not about the comedy of jump starts. Its about the power of seeing the resurrected Lord. Being changed from scared men into bold disciples by seeing Jesus.
Here is what I discern as a main point from todays text: The great commission of John should make us ready for sacrificial missions, powered by the HS, and it should include instruction about the forgiveness of sin and warnings about the danger of sin.
Well then, let us give our attention to the text.
John 20:19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” (ESV)
So we are with the disciples after a resurrection encounter, and yet they have locked themselves into a room because they were scared. Only days before they had seen the mob come for the Lord, tied him beat him crucified him…Yes, they are starting to understand that Jesus is alive…but also remember that they have not gotten the Holy Spirit yet…they will by the end of our text but not yet.
Into this anxiety Jesus shows up…peace be with you. Jesus is the prince of peace. By his resurrection, he has accomplished something that should mean peace. So much could be said about peace, we at least know that at the highest level peace here would mean a cessation of hostilities. But I think even deeper is a sense of peace even among the hostilities. These twelve men were not wrong to be afraid. And to be sure 10 of the eleven would suffer gruesome deaths while the last one would be violently miss treated. All these things would come because of the witness they give to the risen Christ, and to this, Jesus says “peace.”
John 20:20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. (ESV)
A couple of things…There is proof this is Jesus. This is the man they saw die on the cross. They have now seen him in the flesh. His body bears the scars, yet alive and triumphant. Jesus is the victor, not in spite of his wounds, but because of them and his Glorified body has them still.
There is a minor Poet who came out of WW1 who wrote one famous Poem Jesus of the Scars. The poem imagines being in this scene with the disciples seeing the scars of Jesus. The Autor Edward Shillito writes
If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,
Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;
We know to-day what wounds are, have no fear,
Show us Thy Scars, we know the countersign.
The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.
Our Lord does use his rule to dodge human suffering. He instead walks through the worst of human suffering. And in that has a final victory.
In the Revelation of Saint John, the picture of Worship in heaven seems to have its climax in the suffering of Christ.
Revelation 5:9–10
[9] And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, [10] and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” (ESV)
So the Disciples see the wounds of Christ and are glad.
John 20:21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” (ESV)
Again the assurance of peace…how will that peace manifest? In modeling the mission of Christ.
Jesus is fully divine. He is a full member of the Trinity. But instead of insisting on his own will, he does the will of the father who sent him. God sent Jesus to be fully human and to die. In this, Jesus has modeled perfect obedience.
Our God is a missionary God. He could have stayed in heaven, but he leaves the heavenly places and enters into our experience to show us the father. He does so at the highest possible cost to himself.
Peace, have peace you will now go and do as I did. You will follow me to the cross and from the cross to the empty grave. As the father has sent me, even so I am sending you.
Jesus says elsewhere in the gospels. Luke 17:33 Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. (ESV)
Do you want peace? You want the promised shalom of God’s rest, do as Jesus did and loose your life.
John 20:22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. (ESV)
The disciples have Jesus redemption, he showed them the wounds, they have Jesus presences he stands in the room with them, they have calling/mission, and now they have the Holy Spirit. The power of God living in them supplying their needs.
The Holy Spirit that convicts us of our sin, the HS that illuminates the World of God that we would understand it, the HS that gives us the power to live in obedience to Christ, the HS that guides us in our missionary endeavors. They have what they need. It is not reaching in deep within themselves and gutting it out. It is not the pulling up by your bootstraps of the American Dream. This is not the training vignette of the Rocky movies. This is God gifting the disciples out of sheer grace for the accomplishment of the mission that God the father has given.
Each of you in hear that have been baptized has the power of the HS in you. He intends to carry out the mission of God on earth through that power.
John 20:23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” (ESV)
Here is the part of this text that is most controversial. What does it mean for this group to forgive and withhold sins? We have these two extremes. On one hand, we have our Roman and Easter Orthodox neighbors that would interpret that the disciples’ authority to do so is passed down through the church and the clergy maintain this prerogative of binding and loosing which they exercise in the confessional.
On the other hand our low-church evangelical neighbors might say that the things witnessed to in the Bible written by the apostles and completed in the apostolic era of the church, is what Jesus is referencing.
I am going to take the middle way out as an Anglican. I do believe that the authoring of the New Testament by those early Christians was the way in which God reveals to us his will and the moral boundaries of the Christian life. At the same time when we preist declares to us the absolution of our sins in the Communion liturgy, The MO and the EO, he is declaring the loosing of sins. At the same time if when the church, under the office of the HS, refuses communion to a person who is in grave sin, is not penitent, they are fulfilling the call of Christ to withhold sin.
We in our own church even make note of thin in our Exhortation before communion: Dearly beloved in the Lord, ye who mind to come to the holy Communion of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ, must consider how Saint Paul exhorteth all persons diligently to examine themselves, before they presume to eat of that Bread, and drink of that Cup. For as the benefit is great, if with a true penitent heart and lively faith we receive that holy Sacrament; so is the danger great, if we receive the same unworthily. Judge therefore yourselves, brethren, that ye be not judged of the Lord; repent you truly for your sins past; have a lively and steadfast faith in Christ our Saviour; amend your lives, and be in perfect charity with all men; so shall ye be meet partakers of those holy mysteries.
But for those who truly examine themselves and confess and repent of their sins our liturgy also says
Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbors, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways; Draw near with faith, and take this holy Sacrament to your comfort; and make your humble confession to Almighty God, devoutly kneeling.
Where ever you land on verse 23 on the forgiving and withholding of sin, know that Jesus takes it very seriously and has made it part of his commission in the Gospel of John, he offers them peace, he shows them his scars, he gives them mission, the Holy Ghost and the instructions about sin.
The great commission of John should make us ready for sacrificial missions, powered by the HS, and it should include instruction about the forgiveness of sin and warnings about the danger of sin.
Well I have sprinkled a little of my applications our journey through the text, but I do want to reiterate them in a more explicit way and together callus into obedience with this passage.
First off there is every reason to expect anxiety surrounding how we will be received in our commitment to Christ. The disciples were not being foolish to lock themselves in that upper room, they knew what was at stake. But this encounter made these men bold in their proclamation of Christ…even to the point of death in thier work.
At the same time, we need to hold fast to the promises of the resurrection. We may gain scars in our service to the Lord. But just as Jesus dies, we will die and just as he rises again we will rise again. Find peace not in the avoidance of scars but in the triumph or resurrection. We know that the 20th century was bloodier for Christian Martyrdom than the 19 century that proceeded it. But through out the ages Christian martyrs often die with the assurance of resurrection as their comfort.
Are we here in Mason Ohio even bothering to Live with that comfort much less die with it? What ways are you avoiding suffering for Christ? The Promise of Jesus' resurrection will redeem that suffering I promise you.
Live on mission. Our God is a missional God and his disciples are missional creatures.
Living missionary does not mean we all go into frontier missions in a foreign country. It might mean that for some. For others it might mean supporting those folks. For others, it might mean coaching a team, not to stroke your ego but to love the students for Christ. For some, it might mean getting involved in church, freeing up others to live out their own mission by using your HS gifts. It might mean mentoring a young person whose family is absent from their lives, or adopting a senior in a nursing home with no family visiting. For Heather and I, it has meant church planting.
We are all called to live on mission, and if you need help discerning yours let me know I would be glad to walk through that with you.
Also, know that God will equip you for your missional calling by the HS…this is an act of Grace and not a reward for obedience.
I am not a good public speaker because I am obedient…its because God has given me this grace for his own purpose of building up the saints.
And that is just one example. I look at the things God has me thriving in and am just in awe of how he has reached out and touch me with specific skill sets tuned for my call, and left other skill sets out so he could show himself as the Author of all good things.
Declare the forgiveness of sins and the consequences of it.
Talk to people about it verbally. When chatting with an unbelieving friend about some issue that you see in your world some moral failure you see in the news acknowledge that you two are a moral failure and that you are Glad Jesus has forgiven your sins. You might even be courageous enough to say, if Jesus had not I would still be in my sin and I really believe I would spend eternity separated from him. At least say it…if they dont want to talk anymore about it fine but we must declare the forgiveness of sins.
The great commission of John should make us ready for sacrificial missions, powered by the HS, and it should include instruction about the forgiveness of sin and warnings about the danger of sin.
Let me end like I always end. The reminder that on the one hand we can not perfectly fulfill what this text demands of us. Perfect obedience to calling was only completed by Christ. But because of the cross he does cloth us in that righteous obedience to his call, and takes the punishment for our sin. On the other hand now that we are clothed in righteousness and given the Holy Spirit as the disciples were given the HS, we can now model a level of obedience that would have once been impossible to us. Yes we do not perfectly hit the mark. But we day by day grow closer to who God has made us to be through the work of Christ’s cross and the power of the HS.