Bible Text: John 20:19-31 | Preacher: Pastor Christian Preus | Series: Easter 2020 | Millions of Christians in our country are being kept from going to church right now. Some are being ordered by their governments to stay home and some are staying home by their own decision, afraid they might infect others or afraid they might be infected themselves. In any case, many Christians, probably more than ever in the history of the world, want to go to church and feel themselves constrained not to.
This isn’t a new phenomenon. King David spent years unable to go to church. Saul was hunting him down to kill him. He couldn’t come close to the Tabernacle, couldn’t participate in the sacrifices; he spent his time in the wilderness with no church. And David complains about it. He writes psalms about it. Psalm 63 in particular begins with the words, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” He confronts Saul with how horrible it is that he’s driven away from the church, “They have driven me out this day from sharing in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, ‘Go, serve other gods.’” Instead of complaining that he doesn’t have a bed to sleep on, that he can’t go to the market, that he’s been robbed of the conveniences of life, what does he complain about? That he can’t go to church.
And the same is the case for Elijah the prophet, who can’t go to the Temple for years, with King Ahab and his wicked wife Jezebel constantly trying to kill him. And Elijah’s chief complaint to God is that he’s alone, that there is no congregation of believers he can join, he asks God to simply take his life, kill him, because death would be better than life without church. This is what the psalmist means when he says, “A day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.”
And the entire faithful remnant of Israel, in captivity in Babylon, robbed of all the comforts of home and their country, they cry out not for melons and cucumbers, but for Jerusalem, for the Temple, for church. This is what they say in the words of Psalm 137, “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. … How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. If I do not remember you, Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth – if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my highest joy.”
These are recorded to teach us now and comfort us now. First, that you’re not alone in being robbed of church. Disease, bad government, tyrants have robbed people of church throughout the ages. And second, our reaction needs to mimic the Christians of old. We’ve lost luxuries, twenty-two million have lost their jobs, we’ve lost all normalcy, the comforts we’re used to. These are not what the saints complained about. These are nothing in comparison to being kept from church.
But we have the word of God at home. Yes, we do. And David had the word of God with him, in his heart, in his mind, on his tongue, but he still yearned for church. Elijah had God himself talking to him, and he still cried out for the congregation of Christians. The people of Israel had their harps and their voices, but refused to sing the old songs, they sang only of wanting to go back to Jerusalem to worship. This is not secondary for us. Yes, thank God we can stream services online. Thank God we have Bibles and hymnals. Thank God our pastors and moms and dads and teachers made us memorize Bible passages. And if this is all millions of Christians have for a time, then God will preserve them. Luther said of Christians in this kind of situation, “They should consider themselves still as God’s children and heirs, because they have faith and love in His Word.” But still, we pray that Jesus put an end to it, we pray He bring us all back to church, that He feed us again with His body and blood, that we gather as the communion of the saints again, have fellowship with one another, because that is what our Lord God has won for us, it’s what He’s given us and commanded us, and it’s what we long for. It’s heaven on earth.
Our Gospel teaches us exactly this. The disciples were also quarantined, by the way. Afraid of death and afraid to go out. There was a locked door between them and Jesus. But Jesus came to them anyway.
This Jesus passed through walls. He did that because His is the body of God. That’s what His resurrection proves beyond doubt. Dead bodies stay dead. But not the body of God. Bodies can’t pass through locked doors. That’s physics. But physics doesn’t get to tell the body of God what it can and can’t do. Jesus passes through because He insists on being with His disciples and showing them what His wounds have earned them. And nothing, not death, not the fears and doubts of His disciples, not the laws of physics which He himself created, nothing stops Him. Peace to you, He says. Peace with God, as He points to the marks of His suffering in his hands and in his side, pierced for our transgressions, the scars of the chastisement that bring us peace. And as it was then so it is now.
Jesus comes to His own. He comes with the body and blood that have conquered death. And no wall and no so-called natural laws can stop Him from coming. Because His is still the body of God, who established all the laws of science and by whose will they work. And so He gives us this body and this blood, He makes us participate in the divine nature itself. He turns our fears of death into pure peace as we commune with the eternal God who has already suffered our death and risen and will not let death take us away from Him. He turns our guilty conscience into joy by the forgiveness of our sins purchased by the very blood we drink.
Now this is what Jesus gave us, what He instituted, what His church gathers round. And we know this. So an internet church will not satisfy forever. If we have to live with it, we will, knowing our God will keep us Christians, keep us trusting in Him by His Word, but our prayer is the prayer of the psalm, “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh cry out for the living God.” Like the Syrophoenician woman, we’ll be satisfied for the scraps like a dog, but our God has promised us more, He’s given us more, He’s made us His children, He’s brought us into His Church, it’s our inheritance, our right, the legacy of our Baptism.
He doesn’t distribute His body and blood over the internet. Those pastors trying to do that now are like kids playing at tea. It’s crackers and grape juice. It’s a sentimental moment. Nothing more. But we long for church where the body of God passes through these walls and joins with bread and wine to be placed into your mouth and give you the certainty that out of great love He died for you and out of great love He comes to you still, to unite you to Himself forever.
Church can’t be replaced. It’s what Jesus gave us. That same night, the night of His resurrection, Jesus gives His disciples the authority to forgive sin and to retain them. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” Again this can’t be done in a YouTube video. You notice we don’t do it for these internet services. Because I can’t hear your confession. And if I can’t hear a confession, I can’t give absolution. Jesus tells these his pastors to forgive sins and to retain them. Those who don’t confess, who want to live in their sin, who are ungrateful for God’s suffering for them, their sins are still with them, held against them, not forgiven. But those who confess, who like Thomas see their error, their doubt and their arrogance and their pride and their unbelief, and want nothing more than the forgiveness Jesus speaks as He points to His body wounded for us, these hear those beautiful words, the words that echo what Jesus Himself will speak on judgment day, “I forgive you all your sins.”
But I don’t need church for the forgiveness of sins. Yes you do. It’s church that keeps you in the faith right now, even as you can’t come to church. It’s the word you’ve heard, the Baptism you’ve been washed with, the body and blood you’ve taken into your mouth, the forgiveness your pastor has spoken to you in the name of God Himself, that keep you hungering and thirsting for what only your Lord Jesus can give, that drive you to read His Word and know that it is spoken to you, that give you the right and the confidence to pray, “Our Father,” and know that He hears you.
So all of us, those who can still come to church in small groups and receive the body and blood of Jesus and the absolution, and those of you who can’t come, who can’t receive your birthright, let’s learn together how precious church is, not only because we need it but because Jesus died to give it to us. God will preserve you in the faith by His Word. He will. And that Word will at the same time make you thirst to hear it here in church and to eat and drink the medicine of immortality, and to join with the assembly of Christians in loud and joyful thanksgiving to the God who bought us by His blood.
One last word. Thomas doubted. The disciples feared. And there is a lot of doubt and fear in our minds. Don’t deny it. You still have flesh and blood. And it worries about everything, because it’s addicted to the vanity of this world. Now look at your Lord Jesus. He comes to those who are afraid and He doesn’t even rebuke them. He just says, “Peace” and assures them of His love and protection. He comes to Thomas who doubted. He doesn’t cast him off, He doesn’t lecture him. He says peace. He reassures him that He is the same Christ who lived and died for him and now reigns forever. This is your Lord Jesus. He comes to you now through His Word to take away your fear and your doubt. And He will be with you, He’ll be with His church, He will never leave her, so that all of us have heaven on earth to look forward to, as we join soon together to hear our forgiveness as from Christ Himself and feast on our Lord’s body and blood.
God grant it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.