2025-04-27 Easter 2

Scripture Readings

Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

Evidence. The available body information, facts, or data that support or refute a claim, hypothesis, or belief, derived from observation, experimentation, or reliable sources. It is objective, verifiable, and relevant to the matter being investigated. Sounds like a pretty scholarly definition, doesn’t it? When it comes to the resurrection of Christ our Lord, there are two kinds of evidence: negative and positive. The negative evidence is the empty tomb with the stone rolled away. The grave clothes folded up and set aside. And, most importantly of all, there is no body. If there had been one, the Romans and the Jews no doubt would have paraded it through the streets of Jerusalem to put an end to any claims that Jesus was risen from the dead. It would have been a pretty simple, open and shut case.

But here’s the thing. Negative evidence can never clinch a case. It certainly proves that Jesus wasn’t in the grave, but it doesn’t prove what actually happened to Him. You can’t point to the stone rolled back and the folded up laundry and say “Aha! See! He is risen without a doubt!” That’s not going to hold any water whatsoever. There is a long list of options to explain this. The disciples could have come and taken the body. They might have laid Him in the wrong tomb. Alien abduction. It goes on and on. Just read Maclean’s Magazine for any number of dumb fake news theories to discredit the resurrection! But this is where the negative evidence stops and the positive evidence begins. The disciples didn’t claim that they believed Jesus had risen from the dead. They stated it as a fact; they gave eyewitness testimony. “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses” (Acts 2:32).

Not only did the women and the Eleven disciples see Jesus, talk with Him, touch Him, and eat fish with Him, but Paul states that over 500 people saw Him on one single occasion. That amounts to overwhelming, positive eyewitness evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus. This was long before the days of troll farmers and Artificial Intelligence generated video! Jesus first appeared to His inner core of disciples late in the afternoon of that first Easter Sunday. The disciples were all together in a single room, perhaps the upper room of three days before. The doors were bolted shut out of fear. The disciples were afraid of the religious authorities, figuring they were successful in crucifying Jesus, now they would go after His followers. This was hardly a group of guys trying to get their story straight before they go public with their claim that Jesus had risen from the dead! This was a frightened group of followers whose leader had been brutally killed, executed on a Roman cross. They had left everything to follow Jesus, their homes, their livelihoods, their safety and security. And now they had nothing but an empty tomb. They were devastated and scared. Who wouldn’t be?

Into this locked room of frightened disciples, Jesus appears. Notice, He doesn’t knock on the door. It probably wouldn’t have worked if He had. Knock, knock. Who’s there? Jesus. Yeah, right. Actually, we see that locked doors don’t really matter to the risen Jesus. Remember who He is. He’s the eternal, divine Word who made and upholds all things. He’s the eternal Son of the Father, very God of very God. And now that His work is done, He doesn’t hold back on His divine power. He can make His presence known when, where, and how He chooses. And so He just appears in the midst of them, probably further scaring the daylights of them!

The first words He speaks are the first blessing of the resurrection. Peace. “Peace be with you” He says. Peace to your troubled hearts. Peace to your fears and anxieties. Peace to your trepidation. The Hebrew word for peace is “shalom,” which is an even bigger word than our word understanding of “peace.” It’s a double greeting, used for hello and goodbye. Shalom means harmony, wholeness, everything in its place. We recall the earlier verse from John’s Gospel “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” Peace in Christ. Shalom in the home. This is what God gives us in Jesus.

The same Jesus comes to us, to His church, wherever we are gathered in His Name. He comes with His peace. On the first Easter Sunday, and one week later, He showed His people His wounds, the battle scars of salvation. The nail marks in His hands, the spear mark in His side. The source of shalom. “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” Isaiah tells us (53:5). This isn’t some patch-work peace brokered at a round table by high level government officials. This isn’t a peace enforced by the threat of war. This is peace from the Prince of Peace, who laid down His life to make peace, to reconcile the world to God. In the wounds of His death, in the nail holes in His hands and feet, is our shalom, our peace. The end of war, the death of death, harmony, wholeness, health and life are in those scars.

These are the positive evidence. The same Jesus who was nailed to a cross and pierced by a spear is alive and well. The Lamb who was slain, lives, and He has the wounds to prove it. Thomas wanted to see those wounds, and who could blame him? And “doubting Thomas” wanted to see them. The Gospels never call him that. He’s called Thomas Didymus, the Twin, but he’s never called “doubting.” Unbelieving, perhaps sceptical, but not doubting. He says it flat out, “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.” He wants to be sure it’s the right Jesus. The true Jesus is none other than the crucified Jesus. He wants the Jesus with nail marks and the spear piercing. And the true Jesus accommodates him.

The next Sunday, when Thomas was with them, He shows Thomas His hands and His side. He says to Thomas, “Go ahead. Put your finger in this nail hole. Put your hand into this spear hole. Don’t be unbelieving, but believe.” And Thomas does! He believes, and He confesses in what is the most flat out confession of faith in Jesus we have in the NT: “My Lord and my God!”

What Jesus did for Thomas that Sunday, He does for us every Sunday. He speaks His peace, and He presents His wounds – His body and blood, the fruits of His sacrifice. Those are the wounds of Christ for you. His own body given as bread to eat. His own blood given as wine to drink. And He says to us, as He did 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” (JN 20:27). Not faithless, but believing be, Thomas! Trust me. I died for you, to take away all of your sins. I rose from the dead for you, to show my victory over death. I give you my peace, my shalom, a peace you can find nowhere else in all the world. And to give you something concrete and real, as real as my hands and feet and side, I give you my body and my blood as your food and drink.

Jesus’ peace and His wounds – those are the first two gifts of the resurrection. And there are more, because there’s always more with Jesus. A bonus blessing, an Easter egg from Jesus to you. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (JN 20:29). This is your bonus beatitude. This is your Easter egg. Jesus has you in mind with these words that St. John records. You can’t see Jesus, but you can hear His Word. You can’t touch His wounds, but you can eat and drink His body and blood. You don’t see now, but you will soon. For now you must believe, trust, and take Jesus at His Word – for there is no surer Word than the Word of Jesus. Amen! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!