"Jesus moves Thomas from uncertainty to certainty, from unfaith to faith" Quasimodo Geneti 2025

27. April 2025

Easter 2

John 20:19-29

“Peace to you!” Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:26–28)

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Jesus' words to Thomas, “Reach out your hand and touch my flesh,” are the same call at the table of the Lord. “Take, eat. This is my body, which is given for you.”

Where is God? God is found deep in the flesh. Why? To help the dying you. Jesus' death saves only when it is preached for you. Otherwise, His cross casts a long shadow of judgment over history. Peering into the wounds and the horrific death of Jesus alone is the religion of despair. But when the cross is preached for you, Jesus comes to you now, awful and joyful.

What Jesus won for you by losing is a new kingdom of the Holy Spirit who calls and gathers sinners, cures sins, and gives your troubled conscience a home apart from every law, rule, mandate, and guideline. But if you are holy and good, thinking yourself without sin, you will fight against this to your dying breath.

We are “not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even [as] we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified” (Ga 2:16).

When we think of ourselves as holy and good, apart from Christ crucified, we will seek to silence the Gospel, refusing to confess and refusing to forgive. We will seek out preachers for their itching ears who give them the affirmation we want, not the repentance we need. How will you ever stop our lust for a better preacher, better worship, better things, and a better you? How does He break through our hardened hearts who refuse that astounding good news of “Peace to you?”

Jesus gives you words that cannot be ignored, idealized, and otherwise turned into something you can act on because God's words are "clingable." All the awful things that you are and have, Jesus takes, and all the joyous things Jesus is and has, He gives to you. If you are a sinner - if you're selfish, self-centered, and self-seeking - Jesus gives you the deal of a lifetime. This sweet-salvation-swap is yours, hidden in the darkness of the cross under the opposite of a hated, suffering God. Christ for you is found where you least expect to find Him.

To anyone searching for God apart from His words, clinging onto the things of this world with their five senses, there is no end to the game of hide-and-seek. But how does Jesus break through the game of hide-and-seek that you insist He plays with you? Just like He did with Thomas, God gives help against this sin of hide-and-seek in more ways than one.

First, He sends a preacher to speak words of forgiveness and new life to the whole world. Second, through the absolving washing of baptism. Third, through the Lord's Supper “for the forgiveness of sins.” Fourth, through the power of the keys, “when you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven.” And fifth, through the mutual conversation and consolation of brothers and sisters in Christ, “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

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.

This ends Thomas' thoughts, feelings, fears, and hopes of some sort of judgment according to the law. Christ’s absolution doesn’t just silence the law but ends it. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1). 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.

Sins are taken by Jesus in the flesh, to catch you in the act of betraying him and to take the sin from your own body. This is the most scandalous gift of the cross. Jesus wraps Himself in your sin. He becomes sin and the sinner for you. Otherwise, we bear them as we must (with a great deal of denial) until we eventually succumb to the attacks of sin in the form of rebellion, insubordination, lust for power, despair, sickness, or even self-immolation. Everything rides or dies on His Word, absolving, “Peace to you! I forgive you!”

Jesus knows His resurrection is hard to believe. Thomas isn't the only one who doubts. It's not that we don't believe in miracles; it's that the resurrection is a person. Jesus says, “I AM the Resurrection,” not some abstract miracle or idea waiting for you to give it a meaning. Your hope and mine are in Jesus alone, absolving, enlivening, resurrecting.

Like Thomas, we do not want to face what our disbelief of God's promises does to us, and more importantly, to Him. The resurrected Jesus is still the crucified Christ, but as Thomas learned, the sins that were his own have somehow ended up on Jesus' own body. But, when they are on Christ, instead of festering unto death, they are defeated sin. They are governed sins because Jesus is now their Master, instead of the sins mastering you.

Today, when Jesus comes to you and says reach out your hand and touch my flesh, He does this so that you may see and believe that the sins that once belonged to you really do now belong to him. Jesus comes forgiving. You don’t get to hold on to your sins or the sins committed against you anymore. “It is finished!” is the cry of Christ crucified. Finé. Over. Done. Complete. Absolutely finished, now and forever.

“When you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; when you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (Jn 20:23). This word is an absolute judgment on all who fight against Him. It’s also an absolute promise that Christ not only wins the war with sin and death but does so for your own good. This little word of forgiveness also defeats Satan, who cannot help but let it stand where God puts it unto the world, though he storms and rages.

Jesus' victory is conveyed right to your doorstep in the simple pronouncement of the forgiveness of your sin. This is what God does to save you, who rebel and fall under the power of Satan. Everything. God does it all for you. And what do you do in return? Nothing. This is no transaction. This is an exchange. Jesus takes all the awful things you are and have, giving you all He is and has. He gives you everything for life and eternal savation!

So with Thomas and all the saints, you receive God in the flesh. The God who bears your sins in His body. The same body that is given for you to eat today. The same blood given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins. The same resurrected body that chases the good confession out of you: “My Master, and my God!”

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School - Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin