“THE WORD”
Saint John 20: 19-31
Quasi Modo Geniti: 3 April Anno Domini 2016
Father Jay Watson SSP
That’s it, the Name of Jesus—Jesus The Word. That’s the sum and substance of The Faith and The Church; of your life and future life.
It is all about the Word. The Reformer is correct: “Christ could have died a thousand deaths and it would have mattered not without the Word.” The full counsel of God’s Word to be sure but especially the sweet, clean, clear, water of the Gospel. A tree falling in the woods with no one there to hear does not make a sound—not one that matters. A God/Man crucified on a hill outside Jerusalem two millennia ago has zero import and effect without that fact being Gospelled to His brothers and sisters then, now, and forever, until He returns again visibly to talk with His own mouth and with Words, again, from His own lips in His own tenor, tone, pitch, accent, and cadence.
Saint Thomas was and is a great man and a great Saint. God says of this twin called Didymus: “verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” [Mt. 19.28] And: “[Father] I kept them in Thy Name; those that Thou gavest Me, I have kept, and none of them is lost.” [Jn. 17,12a] And again: “[Jesus] called unto Him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them (Thomas) power over unclean spirits.” [Mk. 6.7]
By the Savior, the Holy One of God saying, doing, being, birthing, washing and feeding him, Thomas, the Saint, could say when Jesus received word that Lazarus of Bethany had fallen ill: “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.” [Jn. 11.16] The “Him” is not Lazarus but The Lord, since all of the Disciples knew that Bethany was close to the Sanhedrin’s sphere of control and that Caiaphas wanted Jesus dead. Thomas was courageous. Thomas was a Confessor. From the time of Christ’s Baptism in the Jordan, Saint Thomas followed His Master and Rabbi, or as he confessed on Easter Evening, his “Lord and God.” He preached His Savior’s Word from the day of Pentecost until the day of his own martyrdom in 72 A.D. at Mylapore, India.
And what of Easter Evening; what of the upper-room appearance of the risen Christ and the absent Thomas. Since Holy Scripture is silent as to the reason of Thomas’ absence, charity and 8th commandment “best construction” constrains us to not presume malfeasance. Thomas may well have been at the empty tomb himself verifying the Magdalene, John and Peter’s reports.
The point of Thomas’ so-called “doubt” is not that he was a sinner. Mary Magdalene and Peter were sinners too. The weakness and malnourished faith of Thomas is the point. Thomas’ weakness is your weakness. Thomas would have believed Jesus’ words had the Lord spoken them directly to him—face to face—eyeball to eyeball. Thomas would have followed any of the Lords requests or commands. You would too. If Jesus said I’m going to be here every Sunday to forgive you and strengthen you and you need to be here, why then you would; nothing in the universe would deter you. You would likewise heed St. Paul’s admonitions and exhortations to struggle harder against sin; fast more, give alms more, and pray more Holy Word.
Jesus does this speaking but He does it through His means of Grace as distributed by His Holy Apostles and their successors. Thomas’ sin was in not believing the other 10 Pastors who had been in the upper room when Christ came through the locked wooden door. Wanting to see the nail prints and the wounded side of His Master was not all bad. But disbelieving the Word of those Pastors, who were speaking the Holy Ghost’s message, was to despise Christ’s appointed way of Gospel proclamation. Faith comes not by sight, not by miraculous sign, and not by the ego demanding any visible proof, but by the Word. “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” [Ps. 119.105] This is the difference between glory—a manmade construct, and The Cross—Christ’s work entirely, and His free gift. Whether it’s Thomas setting up demands (much like Herod wanting to “see” Jesus do some miracle) or whether it’s the protestant synergist within you looking for all the so-called “God proofs” in your own success, health, or “feelings,” your works—it’s a sin of weak faith not to believe and receive Jesus in the way Jesus says you are to welcome Him.
Jesus says: “as My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, “receive ye The Holy Ghost; whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.” The Word of The Lord. That means the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, for the Words, and The Word, are one and the same and they do what they say! Melanchthon writes in the Augustana, and this Synod and Parish, believes, teaches, and confesses that the binding and loosing of John 20 “is exercised only by teaching or preaching the Gospel and administering the sacraments, according to the calling.” [AC 28.8]
Repent of your sins of looking for glory or results or inner-burnings and hear His Word hidden beneath the cross of humble water, simple bread and wine, and even less auspicious men in office, for by the Word it is a water of life, the Very Body and True Blood of Christ, and the authoritative remission of all sins! Or as the Reformer puts it so succinctly in the Small Catechism (the Layman’s Bible): “I believe that, when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, especially when they exclude manifest and impenitent sinners from the Christian congregation, and, again, when they absolve those who repent of their sins and are willing to amend, this is as valid and certain, in heaven also, as if Christ, our dear Lord, dealt with us Himself.”
The Word of The Lord says that when His Body is placed on your tongue and when His Blood is poured down your throat you are placing your fingers into His wounds and your hand into His side!
Blessed are you who have not seen, and yet have believed! The Word of The Lord.
In the Name of The Father and of + The Son and of The Holy Ghost
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