Second Sunday of Easter ~ March 30, 2008

He is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia! Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it is great to celebrate again the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Today we see the disciples in a locked room after Jesus resurrection. They are in fear because of the events that have just taken place. They are unsure about their future. Jesus steps into this scene and offers an extraordinary gift of His peace.

This is also the story of doubting Thomas who had to see before he would believe and in whom Jesus says, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” Seeing is believing? Not seeing is believing? Which is it? And so today’s theme is sight.

Have you seen the latest Denver Mattress commercials? These are the subtle commercials where you see someone in bed; when they are sitting up chaos and noise seem to reign – construction out the window, children screaming in the house, etc. But when they lay down all the noise disappears and either soft music or nature sounds are heard and a smile is on the person’s face. They sit up again and noise, lie down to peace and quiet. What a good example for our theme of the “Eyes of Faith.” When we look at the world we see chaos, destruction, sin, death, etc. But we also know through the eyes of faith that Christ has won the victory and that call the chaos of the world will never win and come to an end. World = Chaos and Death; Faith = Victory and Peace.

But instead of focusing in on our eyes of faith, though we will come back to that in the end, I want to focus more on how God sees us – which as you can guess is not as the world sees.

Look again at our disciples in the text today. They are huddled in fear and locked away from the world. Are these going to be men who would change the world? These very same disciples had abandoned Jesus when He was arrested and even Peter who followed Jesus denied knowing Him to a servant girl. One betrayed Jesus and killed himself. One doubts Jesus had even risen until he sees Him. I ask again, with the eyes of the world, are these men who would make great leaders and missionaries? I don’t think so. They are huddled, scared and fleeing any contact with the world.

Could you see these men on the TV show The Apprentice? They would be sitting in the board room with Donald Trump. He would be asking them all these hard questions about why they fled or denied their “team leader.” I am sure they would have had all kinds of excuses. And then we would have heard, “Your all fired!” According to our world view, these are not great leaders but cowards.

But here is the beauty of this story for us today. What does Jesus do? How does he view His disciples? Does He comes into the locked room and say, “You’re fired!”? No, He comes to them and says, “Peace be with you.” Jesus offers them peace! He definitely was not seeing the disciples as we had just seen them cowering in fear. Jesus sees them with the eye of faith, the eyes of a gracious and merciful God who restores His people with His power and might. That is the Gospel! Jesus brings a peace to the disciples that the world never could, a peace won by Jesus death and resurrection. By speaking peace to them He is pardoning them of their sinful, worldly ways.

Not only does He speak peace to them He also gives them a task; one of the greatest tasks in the world – to bring forgiveness through Jesus to all people. In essence they are “re-hired” even through they are far from being ideal candidates for this job. And here is the secret ingredient – the Holy Spirit. Jesus breaths on them and gives them the Holy Spirit. This is their source of courage, power, skill and ability to be true disciples. As the world views them as lowly men, God sees them, by the power of the Holy Spirit, as men who can change the world. Those who had abandoned and failed Jesus are now called, and empowered, to be great missionaries and leaders.

And the same has been true since then for every believer. When we see the world and ourselves from an earthly point of view what do we see? Failure, lack of courage, disappointment, chaos, conflict…. The list could go on and on. But what does God see? He sees Jesus and the Holy Spirit working in our hearts and minds to transform us to be His people, His ambassadors, and His body. Wow! If God can transform a rag-tag group of Galilean men into worldwide missionaries, He can truly transform our lives as well. By the power of the Holy Spirit and the victory won in Christ we are no longer seen as broken, fearful, fallen people, but as ones redeemed and restored by God.

What happened to the disciples after Jesus appeared to them, restored them and sent them out? Well we get a picture of what happened in our Acts lesson. Peter, the one who denied knowing Jesus to a servant girl is now proclaiming Christ to Jewish leaders who could have him killed! That is a complete turn around, not because of Peter’s ability or strength, but because of the Holy Spirit at work in Him. It is because God didn’t see Peter as a failure, but as one who could be His servant.

In our 1 Peter lesson we see this same Peter the apostle, probably later in life, passing on the wisdom of the Holy Spirit to people he was teaching. Peter speaks words reminiscent of the day Jesus appeared to him, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:8-9 ESV) The message is being passed on and it is here for us today. We no longer see with the eyes of the world, that see only chaos, destruction and death. We now see with the eyes of faith given to us by the Holy Spirit in baptism, the Lord’s Supper and His Word. We see the victory won for us in Christ. We see that we can be His missionaries to the world around us, not by our strength but by God’s through the Holy Spirit. The eyes of faith let us see beyond this world into the world of grace and mercy from our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It is this faith that allows us to say with courage and boldness, “He is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!” Amen.[i]

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[i] Thanks to Prof. Dr. Dr. David Zersen for the inspiration of this message from one of his sermons preached May 15, 2005 found at www.predigten.uni-goettingen.de/archiv-7/050515-9-e.html.