✠ One Message: Christ crucified and risen for you ✠
Colossians 2,12-15 2612
Quasimodogeniti 036 weiß
Anastasia and Basilissa, Martyrs under Nero 66 or 68
15. April 2012
1. Almighty and Everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery has established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith (The Book of Common Prayer). O Risen Christ, eight days after Your resurrection, You had to give the Apostle Thomas convincing proof that You were indeed alive and well. Help us, O Holy Spirit, to use convincing words when we speak to neighbors about Christ and His resurrection, so that they may hear the gospel and believe unto salvation. Amen.
2. having been buried with Christ in Baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Christ from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Christ, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Christ.
3. The Apostle Paul proclaims that in Christ, and on account of Christ, God the Father has forgiven all your trespasses and has canceled the entire debt of sin you have against Him. Paul had received this promise and this authority from Christ Himself as His apostle. Today’s Gospel Reading recounts how Jesus appeared before His disciples on the evening of Easter where He said to them: »„Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them: „Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.“« The proclamation of forgiveness is the powerful gospel message of Easter.
4. The Apostle Paul declares that by the cross all trespasses have been forgiven and the entire debt of mankind has been paid in full. Christ Jesus died for the sin of the world; He has redeemed every man, woman and child. Yahweh’s Heilsgeschichte (salvation history) has been completed in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
5. Nevertheless, many do not believe in God’s redemption. Such people lack faith. They are like the apostles on Easter Sunday: they have heard the gospel of Jesus but they think talk of His resurrection from the dead is foolishness. They are like the Apostle Thomas, who when hearing the gospel from his fellow apostles, adamantly refuses to believe their eyewitness testimony. Unbelief refuses to receive Yahweh’s promise of salvation and forgiveness.
6. It is common to hear the cry of people: Why does a loving God send people to hell? A loving God does not send people to hell. A loving God has done everything necessary to close hell’s gates to men and women. A loving God has sent His only Son to suffer, die and rise again in order to redeem mankind. The only ones who should be in hell are the devil and his angels, but the Holy Scriptures are clear: many men and women will be condemned in hell. God does not damn people; unbelief damns a person. If someone refuses to believe and receive Christ as his or her Savior from sin, death and the devil, if someone refuses the Loving God’s gift of eternal life by the merit of Christ, then a loving God has no choice but to affirm such a person’s stubborn refusal of His love and grace and give them exactly what they truly want: eternal separation from a loving God who has spared no expense to save him or her.
7 The Apostle Paul describes it this way: »Christ disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them.« The Lord Jesus appears to His apostles and shows them His hands and His side. He appears to Thomas, and declares: »Put your finger here, and see My hands; and put out your hand, and place it in My side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.« (John 20,27). It is as if Jesus says: „Behold, My hands and side. See where the nails and spear pierced My body. Behold, My risen and resurrected body!“ All the apostles beheld the risen Lord with their eyes and they proclaimed Him throughout the world.
8. »Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed« (John 20,29). Blessed are those who have heard the gospel that Christ rose on Easter and have believed. Blessed are those who receive Jesus’ body and blood in the Lord’s Supper and believe that they are forgiven. Blessed are you for your faith in the risen Jesus!
9. Your Christian faith does not exist in a vacuum. You and I are merely the latest generation of believers that stretches back to the apostles to the prophets to Abraham and to Adam and Eve. Our church is one of many that exists around the world from Europe to Africa and Asia. Thomas and the other apostles preached the risen Christ and set the foundation for the New Testament Church with their proclamation and their martyrdom. The apostles saw and touched the risen Christ and they preached Him in lands far and wide.
10. The catholic and apostolic gospel that was preached disarmed rulers and authorities, both temporal and spiritual, so that the Church triumphed in land after land. This marvelous gospel changed people’s lives, altered the course of nations and influenced cultures. The Holy Spirit works where the forgiveness of sin is preached and salvation is proclaimed in the Name of Christ, His vicarious death and His glorious resurrection. Therefore, the apostles preached, baptized, administered the Lord’s Supper and absolved in the Name of Christ and by His command and institution. Pastors and bishops continue to perform these apostolic acts in, and for, the Church today.
11. You are now a new creation. Jesus triumphed over death and the grave to become the first to receive a resurrected body. Death is no longer a defeat nor is it the end. Eternal life follows physical death. Again, Christ is the first and all humanity will follow. First, the disciples who went to Christ’s tomb on Easter: Mary Magdalene was the very first human being to behold and to hold the risen Jesus. Thomas and the other apostles saw Jesus’ hands and side that still bore the marks of His crucifixion. You have been raised up a new creation in your Holy Baptism. You now bear the royal and mighty Name of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Today you bear testimony to the gospel of Christ and His resurrection. Tomorrow you have the opportunity to be a part of God’s restoration of His creation every time you give witness to the world and your neighbors that in Christ you are a new creation that is forgiven, holy and saved. Do not let the world rob you of this wonderful joy. Do not let the devil cast doubt upon the love that Yahweh has for you. Remain steadfast in your Baptism, and hold true to the gospel that marks you as one redeemed by Christ. Amen.
12. Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, You have done great things for us, and we are glad. You are risen, You are risen indeed. We have heard the gospel of Your resurrection, and we believe, even though we have not seen You with our very eyes. Keep us grounded in this saving faith when the world and our sinful flesh seek to draw us back to the darkness and misery of unbelief, so that we may soar high in the heavens certain and overjoyed at Your resurrection and its power in our lives, namely, that as You are risen and live forever, so too will we. Amen.
To God alone be the Glory
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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart.
Book of Common Prayer, The. Copyright © 1990 Oxford University Press.
ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern.
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