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See my hands and feet in the name of Jesus, amen.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, as you bask in the Easter light, the grace and mercy and peace of he who has risen be with each and every one of you.
Jesus is risen. That’s easy for us to say. You and I have had centuries where the revelation of Jesus standing before his disciples alive has been declared; it has been studied, it has been debated, it has been tested, it has been compared to the scriptures, and it has been passed down to us as the one true church as we continue to confess the truth of his resurrection while the world rejects it and tries to silence this good news of salvation from sin, eternal death, and the devil’s power over the body and soul.
And this victory was won by Jesus’s death on a cross for you and is distributed through the gift of faith in Jesus, God’s one and only begotten Son. It’s easy to say.
The simple and confident confession of faith was not the case for the disciples in our gospel reading this morning. That evening, they didn’t know what to think. They didn’t know what to feel. They didn’t know what to do. It was the third day since they had seen their master, their teacher, their friend.
When he was suddenly arrested, falsely accused, forced to participate in an illegal trial, brutally beaten, viciously whipped, and finally hung on a cross for six hours to experience the pains of a crucifixion, this was the last time they saw him alive. Now their task was to reverently remove his lifeless body from the cross and place it wrapped in burial cloths into a tomb that was not his own, as the large stone rolled in front of the opening. The closing of the entrance, their hopes, their hopes that he, Jesus of Nazareth, was the promised Messiah, also died with him.
They personally experienced the events of this horrific day. They saw him struggle, then breathe his last, and then they watched his body go limp, dangling from the spikes that went through his hands and his feet. They touched his body. They knew that the one who had no life, that they had been following for the past three years, was dead.
Now this small band of teacherless disciples were now concerned about their own lives. Are they next on the hit list? The religious leaders were successful in having their teacher, who was innocent, destroyed. Now will those same people seek out Jesus’ first tier of disciples who might rise up to continue this new teaching, to keep it alive? Could their goal be to squash out this movement forever, thus eliminating the threats to their belief system, to their places of power, profit, and prestige?
According to the Gospel of John, these disciples were hiding behind locked doors for fear of the Jews. In their fear, they probably hid behind locked gates of the courtyard and dividing walls of the compound, as well as the doors into the household and into the inner rooms. They did not want to be found.
But on the third day since Jesus’ crucifixion, the disciples were hearing stories, stories that Jesus, he was alive, like the news that came from the women as they came from the empty tomb. There were even testimonies of individuals personally seeing Jesus alive with their very own eyes. Matter of fact, standing there with them were two disciples in the room telling them about how Jesus concealed his identity, walked with them on the road to Emmaus, and during that time he opened the scriptures to them.
In other words, he was pointing out the many prophecies that described the promised Messiah’s words and actions, and it was there he told them how he fulfilled each and every one of them. It was in Emmaus, during the meal while breaking the bread, that Jesus revealed his identity and then he vanished right before their eyes.
While these two disciples were talking with the other disciples in Jerusalem, Jesus suddenly stood there in the room among them; Jesus found them. There was no knock at the door. There was no creaking of a door being opened. There was no request for an entrance. He just appeared.
Jesus was standing in their very presence alive, and the first words out of His mouth were, “Peace to you.” And these words were not merely a formality, but they actually imparted a blessing. Jesus was giving them what the Word said: perfect harmony between themselves and God.
Even though they saw Him and heard His words, they couldn’t process the scene. This can’t be true, as their minds tried to compute it by using their reasoning. This was unbelievable. It can’t be. For they had seen the Roman soldier drive the spear through Jesus’s abdomen until it pierced Jesus’s heart. It must be a spirit coming to them, and it frightened them.
Even after spending all that time with them, preaching and teaching about the things of God and mankind and their hearing, exhibiting his divine power over sickness, deformities, nature, the spiritual world, and even death, they still were filled with doubts, and Jesus confronted them.
Why? Before they could even attempt to provide an answer, Jesus gave them the best undebatable proof there is: “See my hands and feet.” They saw the same hands and feet that they had freed from the timbers of the cross. There they were, the marks made by the spikes that pierced his flesh. As he had provided this visual aid for them, Jesus elevated this presentation by saying the words that are in our readings: “It is I myself,” but a more literal translation of the Greek words “ego et me” reads, “It is I, comma, I am, comma, myself.”
Jesus was providing for them a double emphasis while speaking the same words that God spoke to Moses from the burning bush when Moses asked him, when the people of Israel who were in bondage in Egypt asked, “What is your name?” God said, “Say to them, I am who I am, and tell them I am has sent me to you.” Again, God in the flesh in their presence.
The first of the two confirmations of this truth is Jesus saying to them, “Touch me, touch me, touch me, and see.” Jesus wanted them to know that He was not a spirit, but the dead body that they had laid in the tomb is now standing before them with life in it.
Even with this proof, the disciples still had a difficult time registering who it was that was talking to them. Their reasoning would not let them accept the reality that was before them. Jesus is not dead; he is alive. Just like the messenger in the tomb who relayed this truth to the women, as they marveled struggling in unbelief, commingling it with joy, they were good Lutherans as they probably said and asked themselves, “What does this mean?”
Then Jesus asked for something to eat—a second confirmation that He’s not a spirit. After receiving a piece of the broiled fish, He consumed it in their presence in the same way that He partook with them the meal in the upper room before He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane.
In his patience, Jesus was drawing this small group of disciples unto himself. Not physically, but in understanding of who he is and why he came into this world. The reason that he appeared in that room with them has two parts. The first part was for them. Yes, their reasoning is a gift of God in his creation, but their reasoning is to be a servant of God’s word and not to seek superiority over it.
So Jesus took them and their reasoning back into his words. He told 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,” like he did to the two disciples in Emmaus. Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. He was pointing out to them the prophecies that described the promised Messiah’s words and actions and how He Himself fulfilled each and every one of them.
Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead. He took them all the way down to that solid foundation of the bedrock. He wanted them to build their house upon the rock. Jesus once said, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock, and the rain fell, and the flood came, and the wind blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded upon the rock.”
Jesus wanted them to be grounded. He wanted them to know this truth. He wanted them to stand firm in the faith, trusting in Jesus and all his benefits and blessings for them in this life and the life to come. For Jesus also said to them in his ministry, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one can come to the Father except through me.”
The second part was through them. Jesus is telling them that through them and their words, repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. “You are witnesses of these things.” They saw his death. They are now seeing him alive. They’re hearing His words of the fulfillment of the Scriptures, and, “Behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you and stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
Soon, soon, instead of hiding behind locked doors for fear of others, they will be standing in the public square for them and all people as Jesus’s instruments, proclaiming the good news of salvation through him, true God and true man. No matter the situations and the circumstances of life, their Lord and Savior will be with them and nothing will deter them from speaking the truth boldly with clarity and love, even at the cost of their own lives, for 11 of the 12 will give their lives for the gospel of Jesus as they will die as martyrs for the faith.
This is you and me. When we could not go to God, God has come to us. Through that same word spoken that night to the disciples is now connected to the waters of holy baptism, and through this means of grace, the Lord has saved us. He has given to us all the benefits and blessings that Jesus has won for us on the cross.
He has placed us on that same rock, and like the first disciples, through the works that he has worked, we have the forgiveness of our sins and the strengthening of our faith, and he enables us to stand upon the solid foundation of the revelation of Jesus for us. He has lived in our stead a perfect life. He died on the cross to pay for the price of our sins, and because he has risen, we too shall rise and live with him forever because of that gift that he has given to us—the eyes of faith.
You and I have seen; you and I are witnesses. Because we have witnessed what God has done for us in accordance with the truth of his word, we too he sends out into this world to be his light as he shines through us into our various vocations so that the truth may be proclaimed to all who have ears to hear. God loves them, and it is displayed so beautifully in the words of John 3, verses 16 and 17.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through Him.
Because of this truth, you can live in this world. You can live in this world. No matter the situations, no matter the circumstances, be they good, be they bad in your life, in your family, in your country, or in this world, because the Lord Jesus has promised. He’s promised to always be with you, and he has promised never to forsake you.
Because of God’s gift to you, he says, “See my hands and feet, that it is I, comma, I am, comma, myself.”
We can proclaim, oh, we can proclaim with confidence, “Jesus is risen.” Yes, yes, yes, it is that easy for us to say, for it is true. Thanks be to God. Amen.
The peace which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
