Jesus seeks and gathers them all together that there may be one fold under one shepherd. Everyone who wants to be saved must be a part of His flock. The Good Shepherd has given His life for the sheep, and therefore, He is still our shepherd today, “by the blood of the eternal covenant” (Heb 13:20), a covenant of redemption and forgiveness where all are made whole again.

¹ That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, ² the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God, in them that hear ³ the Gospel, to wit, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ’s sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake.

And so, in John 20, Jesus stands there, with Thomas' sins on Himself. Then, He speaks so that Thomas isn't left to stare in shock and awe, silently wondering what happens next. Jesus absolves Thomas. Peace to you! (I forgive you!) Put your finger here. Do not disbelieve, but believe. Jesus moves Thomas from uncertainty to certainty, from unfaith to faith. Thomas' sins are not his anymore, as proven by the marks in Jesus' hands, feet, and side.

For Luther, preaching gives both internal and external certainty (givable, possessable, shareable). Certainly only comes when both law and gospel are preached absolutely, not simply to affect the hearers psychologically. These two words are God’s movement from accusation to promise, hiddenness to revelation. God is not the “yet will be” of the law, but the “here I am” of His promised mercy. When God hides, my feeling or experience is uncertainty. When God reveals by preaching absolutely, my feeling or experience is certainty. Certainty comes outside by a preacher, who is the instrument of God’s work/word, and thereby actually elects to salvation. Our certainty is in Christ’s fulfillment of the law, making the law neither agreeable nor without accusation, but completely ends the law, freeing me from sin, death, and the devil. The boldest contradiction and opposites are the sub contrario of the preaching of the cross.

We have spent the Holy Week together, watching and waiting for our Redeemer, hearing again what this ransom cost Him. The Sinless One took all the sins of the world into His flesh. He suffered the just penalty for all our transgressions. He died our death on the tree of the cross. And now, on the third day, He burst forth from the grave, alive. Death could not hold Him any more than the lions' den could hold Daniel. Indeed, Jesus is the one who set the prophets of old free!

As the sun has dawned, Jesus comes to you today. He shines into the darkness, revealing what was hidden by speaking. In His revelation, we are allowed to see what is really real. The light of Christ shines in preaching and teaching. He shows you what leads to sin, death, and hell. But His Easter triumph song will not go unspoken, but shines brightly and boldly this day so that you see. He proclaims the Gospel as the light shining in the dark, showing you the way to forgiveness, life, and salvation. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

The spear pierced His side so that the life-giving fluids might flow freely and serve as a sign of the power of Holy Baptism and the Lord's Supper to bestow the new life and salvation that Jesus won for us in His death. All the benefits of Jesus’ death and resurrection flow forth from His side for us in the font and at the table.

It is good that we contemplate Christ's Passion and death, not merely with words and outward pageantry, but with our whole life and in truth. This is why we preach Christ and Him crucified for forgiveness, life, and salvation, even if it is a stumbling block and rock of offense. And “those who belong to Christ,” says St. Paul, “crucify their flesh together with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24).

All true love, be it for God, family, spouse, brothers, or neighbor, is tethered to faith in Christ, the Word of God. As Christ and His apostles Peter and Paul confess above, faith without love is dead. And as St. Peter’s lovely sermon taught us this Lent, ἀγάπη love without faith is aimless, ungrounded, and empty. Peter describes this gift of life in a series of virtues beginning with faith and ending with love. Faith in Christ is the foundation from which all the Christian virtues flow, and love is the culmination and “greatest” result of faith (1 Cor 13:13). Thus, we are given to speak of the sanctified life, established and founded upon God’s grace in Christ, from love received from God and lived in love for one another.

So, to Judas, he did everything just as we do with will. His will was not doing what it did because of divine coercion. He willed to betray Christ, to kill Christ, to eradicate His God, and all according to the law. He figured Christ must die for the sake of justice to preserve the order of the law. There is no need to make excuses for God, with dueling wills, coercion, etc. Everything in time depends on whether God is preached or not. Judas was thrown upon God’s awful Divine Majesty. The religious leaders answered his cry for mercy with more law leading to death. The only difference between Judas and Peter in betrayal is that Peter got a preacher of the promise to end the law’s accusation with the Gospel.

Jesus’s last words ring true: “They do not know what they do.” While they may not understand, He does. Jesus calls a spade a spade, sin for sin. Today and every day, we hear a greater Word, good news, Gospel overflowing! “Father, forgive them!” This is the only answer for our sin and guilty conscience. It is the sole source of a new heart and a transformed life.

The specific relationship of the brotherhood is that of love, φιλαδελφία, brotherly kindness. Consider then what the Apostle John writes, “He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” Then, he goes on to describe specific members of the brotherhood and calls them to repentance for faith and love.

And what if Jesus has a hard sermon for you? Are you going to ignore Him, pollute His relationship with others with lies, try to muzzle Him, or even try to have Him murdered? Or in faith, will you listen to Him, speak well of Him before your neighbors, encourage Him to keep talking, and hold fast to Him? What if sticking with Jesus means finally being honest about your sins and watching all your idols turn to blood and ashes? What if it hurts to stick with Jesus, even suffering rejection, pain, and loss, and maybe you, too, get crucified? This is why we go with Jesus through His suffering and death year-over-year during this Passiontide, learning again what it means to be a disciple.

This means that God desires this seed to be preached in all nations, and thereby to elect his chosen. Everything depends upon Christ, the seed, being the “Who” that makes the promise rather than an imaginary election by the “what” of the command. And it is a good thing, as Luther keeps saying, that our eternal life does not depend upon either our will or God's law. God's purpose in Abraham's trial is to crush the head of the serpent in Abraham himself—to be God for him (preached), and not God in himself (unpreached), crushing the serpent's head.

What we do, how we act, and how we speak confess what we are given to believe—Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins. In this way, the call to godliness is to see all of one’s life as worship and confession. Everything is received from God in thanksgiving. Everything is done in Jesus’ name and to God’s glory.

A real, present, active, external Word must be delivered to His intended hearers. Opposition comes when a will is met who is not given God’s promise, even when the promise is spoken unmistakably in his presence. God will not be ignored, but more importantly, His forgiveness for His elect will not fail. At first blush of the sinner, God’s external Word preached is not received as freedom from sin but as an intruder, an opponent, and an enemy. Moses didn’t even like the Word he was given to preach at first. Finally, though, God will not let evil live in a peaceful kingdom without being raided by His external Word.

Jesus is doing the prophet's job again. And again, He’s drawing your attention to the giver of every good gift, God the Father. It was never about Moses or Elijah. And even Jesus doesn’t glory in Himself but He glorifies His Father. The miracle of the five thousand, like those miracle signs before and those that will come until the ultimate sign of suffering, cross, death, and resurrection, shows you who your God is. You are given to see the length, width, depth, and height of God’s love for you, revealed in Jesus Christ, His Son and our LORD.

And who appears after Babylon falls and Beast is destroyed? Christ Jesus, the Son of Man, coming on a white cloud, a golden crown, and a sharp sickle, reaping the earth of the harvest, you His saints! Thus, we rest confident and hopeful in God’s promise of deliverance, waiting for what we know will come. Steadfastness is about the entire community (e.g., God’s Israel) waiting for God’s covenant to be fulfilled. Cleaving to God in Christ is essential for us to endure and bear patiently life in this world without being ashamed. The Scriptures never call the pious, righteous man to endure in the power of his own steadfastness. The only way to stand fast is to cleave to God, the result of waiting on God.

Satan’s “peaceable kingdom” collapses into conflict and fury whenever the Gospel is preached with its frightening freedom. God makes promises beyond the law. God cannot lie or be thwarted. The law does not dictate the terms of divine power. Satan is a liar who wagered everything on God’s righteousness as a pure command that humanity must fulfill. Sinners would be freed from their false dream of escape through obedience. But then Christ stops adhering to the rules (law) and irrationally and unlawfully grants His absolution to the ungodly, electing the unrighteous unfairly and inequitably.

But the really good news is that Jesus tells us that because He has already overcome, we will win, too. “The gates of Hell cannot withstand our efforts” (Matthew 16:18), He says. And so don’t see yourself as a run-down old shack or even a cute, inviting cottage. Don’t think Christ comes to do a little renovation job. His Word is death and resurrection, confession and absolution. And by His gifts, Jesus Christ remakes you into a palace in which He lives and from which he launches his infiltrations into the lands the devil has usurped from Him.