Eleva Lutheran Sermons Eleva Lutheran Church

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So last week in the Gospel of John we considered the story of Jesus giving Thomas what he needed to believe and that and we talked about how this is a story of promise and hope.
Now today's reading is from the Gospel of Luke so we don't have Thomas singled out but all the disciples are there standing talking and Jesus comes among them.
So there are two things today that I want to ponder with you in this reading and the verses in verse 36 when Jesus says to these disciples who are terrified peace be with you and the second thing is in verse 41 while in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering.
So before digging into that let's take a moment just to review a few events that have happened up until this point in the story.
You remember that when the disciples were traveling with Jesus he predicted his death and resurrection to them three times.
A group of women went to the tomb and they found it empty and they were reminded about Jesus' prediction of being raised and they were told that he was gone that he had been raised.
Two of the disciples had met Jesus on the road to a mass where Jesus opened their mind to scriptures and Jesus had also appeared to Simon Peter.
Now while they were talking about all this the two people who met Jesus on the road to a mass of Simon Peter the women they're all talking about these things and then Jesus appears right in front of them right among them.
He speaks to them to calm their fears and he shows them his hands and feet and the marks left by the nails and the very first thing that he says to his disciples is peace be with you.
Now Jesus doesn't say I forgive you for denying and deserting me.
He doesn't say I told you so after all I predicted my death and resurrection many times but you weren't listening he doesn't say that.
He doesn't tell them about his time in the grave and what that was about.
He doesn't chart out the future of the church.
He doesn't start giving them an mission assignments and he doesn't promise them promise them that now all their earthly needs will be met and life is going to just run smoothly.
Smoothly.
Jesus doesn't read him with words of victory or comfort or promise for a lack of worry.
He doesn't do any of this instead.
He blesses them with his peace.
Peace be with you.
Now if you noticed just ahead of this Luke uses a whole bunch of adjectives in this one-short sentence that the the disciples are startled.
They're terrified.
They're frightened, disbelieving, wondering and joyful.
So many mixed emotions while in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering even after all they had heard and seen the disciples still disbelieve and have doubt.
Like the disciples we struggle with disbelief and to accept that God's promises are for us too.
I don't know about you but I can really identify with the disciples.
It's challenging to see and experience all the things that are going on in the world to experience the limitations of death and pain and scarcity and we know with absolute certainty that all things in this world must end and at the same time to find hope in the new life that Christ promises even when it's standing right there in front of us.
It's just hard to take in to think about this man, your teacher, your friend, being suffering and being beaten and murdered and buried and then rising from the dead.
It's hard to take that in to accept it and to believe that Jesus died for us, for you and for me.
It's not hard to have moments of skepticism that Jesus was resurrected on that first Easter morning.
It's just challenging.
It's challenging not to doubt God's promise of abundant life and unconditional love and like the disciples in the midst of all that disbelief and doubt we can still experience joy.
Don't disbelieve and doubt do not have to be limiting factors and they do not preclude joy.
Joy does not come from knowledge or from certainty.
We can experience it even in the midst of doubt and wonder and fear.
Joy is a gift given by the Lord and at

John 20:19 - We start out today with John filling out the Easter story.
So last week we, that first Easter morning, when Mary Maglan goes to the tomb and she finds the rock rolled away and the tomb is empty.
So we started last week, we retold that story of the first Easter morning.
Then she goes to the disciples and she says what she's found, the tomb is empty.
We don't know where Jesus' body is.
And so then of course we have the disciples running down to also see that the tomb is empty.
All of this happens on that first Easter morning.
Mary then sees Jesus, he appears to her.
She goes to the disciples and says, I have seen the Lord.
Now John's reading today continues that story.
So what we heard today happens in the evening, right?
So we have the empty tomb is discovered in the morning.
Mary sees Jesus.
She tells the disciples, I'm thinking maybe they didn't really believe her because we find them in the evening, locked up in a room, right?
They're locked up in a room.
I think that it would be safe for us to say that they are afraid.
They are afraid for themselves, for their safety.
They're grieving the death of their teacher and their friend on that Easter evening.
And if we think about that group of people who was gathered, some of them had deserted Jesus.
Some of them had denied Jesus.
Some of them watched him die from a distance.
So imagine what kinds of emotions they would have been experiencing.
And then all of a sudden Jesus appears, peace be with you.
As the father sent me, so I send you, receive the Holy Spirit.
And if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.
If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.
Imagine Thomas who wasn't there.
He misses this whole thing.
And then he hears this witness.
We have seen the Lord, but he says, I don't believe it.
I'm not going to believe it until I see and I can see his wounds and I can touch his wounds.
Thomas will not be shamed into believing or be shamed to keep his mouth quiet about his disbelief or his unbelieving.
And poor Thomas has become the target of many, many sermons criticizing him for his doubt and they falsely isolate him from the rest of the disciples.
I mean, they didn't really believe Mary when she told them, but poor Thomas is the one who got singled out.
But the thing is, when we go for this doubting Thomas interpretation, we miss the point that Jesus is the center of this story, not Thomas.
Jesus is the center of this story.
And we're gonna get back to Thomas in a minute, but I wanna take a little side journey with you.
So this verse 23, if you forgive the sins of any, they're forgiven if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.
I have always been troubled by the second part of that statement about the retention of sins.
And I wondered what in the world it means to retain sin on behalf of someone else.
And as I said with the children's message, one of my challenges that when I hear the word sin, I immediately think of wrongdoing, committing a crime, breaking a commandment.
It's all this understanding of sin that has been ingrained in me since a young age.
And I think that's the case for many of us, that when we talk about sin, we're talking about someone that's doing something wrong.
But in my mind, that meant that the disciples, mere human beings had the power to decide if someone's sin, someone's wrongdoing would be forgiven or not.
This just has never made any sense to me.
So as I was trying to sort this out, I reminded myself that in the gospel of John, sin is not a moral category.
Sin functions as a synonym for not being in relationship to God.
So your relationship with God is broken.
So to believe in God means being in relationship with God.
Theologian, Sanders Schneider's has spoken and written about the translation that we find in our Bible that we read this morning.
If you forgive the sins of any, they're forgiven.
If you retain the sins, they are retained.
And when considering the second part of this verse about the retention of

Easter - Watch at: https://youtu.be/CaUwpYfZr2s File Downloads: https://elevalc.org/df_media/W1siZiIsIjIwMjMvMTEvMzAvMTIvNTUvMDAvMzhiNTkyNDYtNDFmYi00OThiLWJhOGQtMGM0Yjc2OTUwMjU4LzIwMTUgMDcgMjYgc3RldmUubXAzIl1d/2015%2007%2026%20steve.mp3?sha=5a9add95c78eb664

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