Easter 1—Quasimodogeniti
Dear friends in Christ. Our Gospel reading today brings us back to Easter Sunday evening: On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you” and then to the following week: Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. The eight days includes the first day—so a week later, a week after Easter Sunday. That’s perhaps why for centuries this Gospel account was read on the Sunday after Easter—it’s the anniversary of Jesus’ post resurrection appearance to the disciples including Thomas.
But it also reminds us of another truth—the centrality of Sunday to the Christian. Sunday is called the “living monument to the resurrection.” It’s not that the Christians merely took the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday and moved it to Sunday just to be different. Instead, Sunday—each Sunday—is celebration of Easter. Already in the Christian Church in the days of the apostles Sunday was celebrated as the holy day, the day Christians would gather for worship. St. Luke mentions in Acts 20.7: On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread… certainly a reference to the Sacrament. To be sure, unlike for the OT times, when God specifically commanded the 7th day, Saturday, as the day of rest and worship, God did not specifically command any specific day for His NT Church. But what better day than Sunday—the day of Jesus’ resurrection?
Sunday, the first day of the week, also has another significance. The first day of the week is a reference to creation. God began the creation on the first day. The point is: in Christ we are a new creation [2 Cor. 5.17]. Jesus’s resurrection on Sunday has made possible for us our new creation—in the waters of holy baptism. There’s a lovely reference to this in the first verse of the Introit for today, from [1 Pt. 2.2] Peter’s First Epistle: As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby. And that’s how we get the name for this Sunday, “Quasimodogeniti” —the Latin way to say as newborn babes. In the early Church, the converts were baptized during the Easter vigil. Here, a week later, these new Christians are addressed as newborn babes.
Our new life as Christians is because of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead on a Sunday; that new life and every blessing was given to us in baptism where we were connected with Christ [Rom. 6.1-4] and clothed with Christ [Gal. 3.27].
1. Not only did Jesus rise from the dead and conquer for us our enemies of sin, death, devil and hell, and come and announce and give these gifts and blessings to the disciples, but in a wonderful and gracious way, He came the following Sunday to Thomas to assure and give him these gifts and blessings. Notice a pattern here? Jesus comes to His Christians as they are gathered together to give them the fruits and blessings of His life, suffering, death and resurrection.
To be sure, we don’t see Jesus physically like the disciples did at that time—we cannot put our fingers here, and see Jesus’ hands; and put out our hand, and place it in Jesus’ side—but He is still here granting us the same gifts and blessings He did the disciples then. In other words, Jesus’ resurrection appearances continue even today each time we are gathered around His holy word and sacrament. He is in with us, just as He promised [Mt. 18.20]: Where two or three have been gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them, giving us His gifts.
What glorious words we see leading off our text: On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus came and stood among them! He was there! It was the same Jesus the disciples knew and loved: Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. He was the same Jesus—only different. The last time they saw Jesus He was in His state of humiliation, that is, Jesus, as man, did not always or fully use His divine power. That’s why, among other things, He could suffer and die. Now when He comes to them, Jesus is in His state of exaltation, that is, as man He now fully and always uses His divine powers. Jesus entered His state of exaltation when He came back to life on Easter Sunday and remains in it throughout all eternity!
That first Easter Sunday evening, Jesus, true God and true man, came and stood among the disciples. He showed them his hands and his side. He proved who He was, that He was the same Jesus, true man with a true body, not a ghost or phantom, as He showed them His glorified and resurrected body. He proved His suffering and resurrection—it was the same body that hung on the cross. His glorified and resurrected body showed death’s power had been broken. Jesus was now in His state of exaltation, making full use of His divine power! That’s why the locked doors couldn’t keep Him, His physical body, out—just like the tomb couldn’t hold Him in. Jesus was physically and bodily there in the midst of the disciples.
How/ why could Jesus do that? Yes, He bodily rose from the dead; He was victorious over death and the grave. But the reason that Jesus, the God-man, could bodily come into the midst of His disciples—even behind locked doors—was because He is the God-man. Jesus is one Person—who is both God and man. That means where He is as God, there He is as man.
In other words—because Jesus is true God, the locked doors meant nothing; He could go right through them. But because He is one Person—both God and man—where He is as God there He is also as man; that’s why He could show His disciples His hands and side, His physical body. Jesus is not divided! It’s not that He’s one place as God and another place as man. Jesus is one person—He is the God-man. Jesus is there with the disciples physically, the locked doors not hindering His coming because He is the true God.
2. Now notice what Jesus says: Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.” And again with Thomas present: Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Notice, when Jesus comes He does not come empty-handed. But when He comes to the disciples He comes with the greatest gift possible, with the goods and gifts He obtained by His life, suffering and death; He comes with the fruit of His resurrection: Peace be with you. This peace is the absolution; it is the announcement of the forgiveness of their sins. Sinful humanity had been reconciled to the holy God. And now Jesus, on this Easter Sunday evening and the next Sunday comes and announces this peace, this fruit/ blessing of His resurrection. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.
As we gather together for worship, we gather together on Sunday. As we do so, let our text lead us into the truth of the great blessing that is ours as we do so. Like the disciples on these two Sundays in a row were gathered together, so too do we gather together to receive what the disciples received—the absolution, the forgiveness of sins. Again, Jesus does not come empty handed. He comes also to us giving us these same blessings He gave the disciples then. Gathering together on Sundays is not for us to show God what good Christians we are; instead, it is so that Christ Jesus may come also to us to give us in the word of the absolution/ forgiveness spoken through the pastor—in the stead and by the command of Christ—that same comfort and joy He gave the disciples on those two Sundays. As Jesus comes to us in our midst, He gives us that forgiveness and life, that peace and reconciliation, in the Gospel word that we hear proclaimed in Church. What a glorious picture of the Church we have in our text—here you have the 10 or 11 faithful disciples gathered together and Jesus comes in their midst—not because they were so worthy and deserving, after all they had fled and deserted Christ and they were now cowered in fear—but because they needed the gifts of forgiveness and peace He would bring and give them.
The same way with us! We have all our sins; we have hurts and pains, sorrow, failures and brokenness; like Thomas, even unbelief rearing its ugly head in us. But Sunday comes and we gather together around our Lord’s word and sacrament and Jesus comes to us and in the Gospel and absolution He says to us: “Peace be with you.” …. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. We are glad and rejoice with the announcement that our sins are forgiven us; when the peace that Jesus brought about is given us personally in word and sacrament.
Let us in particular not forget the “Thomas portion” of our text: Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.”
Jesus came in grace that following Sunday especially for Thomas. He didn’t come to scold to reprimand him but to strengthen his faith—and in particular for the task that He was calling Thomas, along with the other 10, to do—to be His apostles: As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. In the same way, Jesus comes to us each Sunday in church not to reprimand and condemn us for our sin and disbelief—as He has every right to, like He did Thomas—but to give us forgiveness of sin and peace with God, which He brought about by His life, suffering and death. Your sins should not keep you from church but should all the more compel you to be in church that Jesus may give you that forgiveness and strengthen you in faith and to carry out the work of your calling. The great grace for us, dear Christian, is that the risen Lord comes to seek us out when our faith is bruised and shaken and to give us peace/ forgiveness and strength to faith.
Let us not overlook these words of our text: When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord; and “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Just as Jesus was bodily there with His gathered disciples showing them, letting them touch His physical body to show that it was really Him, so also He lets us touch His body in the Blessed Sacrament. Not only does He let us touch His body but He gives it to us to eat with the bread and His blood with the wine. We receive His blood that we may truly recognize and believe that He shed His blood for our forgiveness; we receive/ touch His body with the bread that we may truly believe that He rose from the dead as victor for us over sin, death, devil and hell. Yes, we don’t physically see Jesus with our physical eyes but remember He is the God-man: where He is as God—everywhere where His Church is gathered together around altar and pulpit—there He is also bodily, as man because Jesus is one Person.
What a great grace for us—Jesus’ resurrection appearances continue to us today—on Sunday as we as a church gather around His word and sacrament, just like with the disciples Easter Sunday and that following Sunday. INJ Amen