The Boldest Prison Break EVER!

The Resurrection Appearance in John 20 and the Gospel of Peace

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. John, chapter 20, verses 19 -31. 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 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. 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.

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 his hands, the marks of the nails, and place my finger into the marks of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.

Eight days later, his disciples were inside again. 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.

Put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

He is risen. He is risen indeed. In the name of Jesus, Amen. Alright, have any of you ever seen movies or television programs that have to do with prison breaks, right? Isn't this normally how a prison break works?

Guys are in prison. They're plotting. They're scheming. They've come up with a way to defeat the defenses, get around the guards, sneak out through a pipe or something like that, right? And then they execute their plan.

It's an intense type of thing, right? And what's the first thing a prisoner does as soon as they're out from behind the wall? Lose the orange jumpsuit and start hoofing it, right? We've got to get out of here because they know at any time that siren's going to go off.

And then the dogs are going to start coming. The helicopters will start flying. The posse and the shotguns, they'll all be doing their things, right? And they're.

Going...

In our first reading today, I've got to admit, this is like either the most audacious bold prison break I've ever seen in my life or the dumbest, okay? Because these guys as soon as they've sprung from prison, they go right back to doing what they were doing rather than heading to the coast, catching a ship to Rome or something, right?

Or maybe Spain. Or maybe it's a good time to go visit Europe. Get up into Gaul, up into where the British are, right? No, these guys head right back to where they were arrested, which kind of begs the question, what's gotten into these guys?

What's gotten into this? We're talking about boldness, confidence. Who are these men? I don't even recognize them, at least not based on last week's reading. How on earth can this be Peter and the apostles that we see in Acts 5, right?

Let me read again a portion of it. Acts 5, 27 -22. When they had brought them, they set them before the council. The high priest questioned them, saying, We strictly charge you not to teach in this name.

This is after they got arrested a second time, right? We strictly charge you not to teach in this name. Yet here you've filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood on us.

Side note, it's not a bad thing if Jesus' blood is on you. They're concerned about guilt, but see, the thing is, we already know that we are guilty, and so Jesus' blood being on us is what cleanses us from our sins.

Side note complete. We continue. You're intending to bring this man's blood on us, but Peter and the apostles answered, Now check this out! We must obey God rather than men.

You were just arrested!

Yeah, an angel sprung you out of prison, and you went right back! We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging Him on a tree. God exalted Him at His right hand as leader and Savior to give repentance to Israel and the forgiveness of sins, and we are witnesses to these things.

And so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him. Hmm. Alright, I feel like I'm missing something here. Because last week when we left off, things were not quite this way. In fact, let me give you a little bit of an idea here.

I remember when I was growing up watching the Brady Bunch. Now I'm not talking about reruns. Just so you know, I was old enough to see first time airing Brady Bunch episodes, brought to you by Tide. Okay?

Yeah. Okay. And I remember one year they had a series of episodes that all took place in Hawaii. It's kind of a mini-series right there in the Brady Bunch, alright? And these are the episodes where Greg had a surfing accident, and a series of bad events took place to the Brady family, supposedly due to a cursed tiki statue that found its way into someone's luggage, right?

And after the first episode in Hawaii aired, the following episodes in Hawaii in that little mini-series would begin with these words, previously on the Brady Bunch. And they would have flashbacks, right?

We're going to do a little bit of a flashback. Let's flashback to last Sunday's gospel text. Let's pay attention to what's going on here, because I don't recognize these apostles at the moment. Something's disconnected.

Luke 24, verse 1. On the first day of the week, that would be Sunday, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. As they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead?

He's not here. He's risen. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise. They remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all these things to the eleven, and to the rest.

So the women go there, and they go back, and they report what they'd seen. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale.

They did not believe them.

Hmm. Okay.

So we leave the apostles off hearing the report from the women. Oh, and by the way, it's a good thing that the women were the first to report that Jesus had been raised from the dead. In fact, it was Mary Magdalene herself who was the very first eyewitness to the resurrection, and this is a good thing, and the reason why.

Think back to the Garden of Eden. Who of our family, our family as humans, was the first to fall into the temptations of the devil? It was Eve. The sin is completed by Adam, though, and he's the one who's held responsible.

And so it is that as Jesus, through his death and resurrection, is reversing all of the curse and what the devil has done, now has it that the first one to proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the first to be the eyewitness of the resurrection, is none other than a woman.

Very important. But we leave them off so the first gospel of the resurrection of Jesus is proclaimed by a woman, and it goes forth into the world, and the disciples hear it and they say, Huzzah! No, they're sitting there scratching their head going, Huh?

What? Right? So we return to our gospel text, see if we can pick up a little bit more context here from today, on the evening of that date, still Easter Sunday, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews.

This doesn't sound anything like the guys from Acts 5. So they're all huddled inside this upper room, the doors locked, and you can hear, I'm sure it went down something like this, Mary comes back, and she knocks on the door.

Ah! It's the Jews! We're dead!

No, it's just me! Don't knock so loud, Mary! You almost killed us! You can just see these guys are totally paranoid. So, in the midst of all of this fear, paranoia, worried that these guys are next, right?

That's what they're really worried about. They just crucified Jesus. And remember Peter? While the night when Jesus is betrayed, he's warming his hands by a charcoal.

Fire, and a slave girl! Slave girl!

Were you one of his disciples? No! I never knew him! I don't know.

What you're talking about! Does this three times! Totally gives up.

Jesus to a slave girl! Right? This doesn't.

Sound anything like the guys in Acts 5. So, in the midst of all of this fear, worry, doubt, Jesus came, stood among them, and said to them, catch this. Peace be with you. No rebuke. Jesus has just bled and died for their sins.

And he says to them, peace. He doesn't say, listen, I told you I was going to raise again on the third day. Where was the praise band when the storm was rolled away? I expected trumpets and fanfare, confetti.

I mean, no, no, no, no rebuke. Instead from Jesus, words of forgiveness. Words of peace. Peace be with you. And when he had said this, now watch this little detail, he showed them his hands and his side.

Often times people think that Thomas gets special treatment. Right? He doesn't. The other disciples, the ten that are left right now, Thomas has missed this meeting, they also get to see Jesus' hands and his side.

They get to touch him and see that he is truly bodily raised from the grave. So then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord and Jesus said to them again, peace be with you. Peace. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.

See, Jesus was sent by the Father and now Jesus raised from the grave is sending the apostles. In fact, that's what the word apostolos in Greek means. A sent one. And so these are the apostoloi. They are sent of Jesus Christ and he gives them a commission.

He ordains them to do a very important thing. So he breathes on them, says to them, receive the Holy Spirit. This is much akin to the breath of life breathed into Adam when he was formed by God in the clay.

And he says, if you forgive the sins of any, the Greek is way better than the ESV here. They are already forgiven. Will have already been forgiven, maybe is a little tighter translation. Which means that when a pastor or a Christian, and notice I said Christian, not just pastor, pronounces an absolution.

It's really not the Christian doing the speaking. Because will have already been forgiven means the words of forgiveness have been announced already by Christ himself in the heavenly kingdom. Same with the retention of sins.

There's two keys, but that's a different sermon. And so here we've got the disciples commissioned by Christ, sent by Christ to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus name and even to forgive sins.

And when we see them back in Acts 5 after the prison break, while talking to the Sadducees and the religious leaders who had them arrested, they are saying again that God has exalted Christ to be our leader and savior in order to give repentance to Israel and the forgiveness of sins.

They are doing exactly what Christ has commissioned them to do. And our gospel then continues now. Thomas, one of the twelve called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came. And everybody calls him doubting Thomas.

Everybody calls him doubting Thomas, but doubt wasn't his problem. Doubt makes it sound like he kind of sorta believed. He wasn't exactly sure, maybe he was kind of sitting on the fence. No, Thomas wasn't sitting on the fence.

Listen to this. 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. Now watch. The women announce it first. He's raised from the grave.

The disciples respond, no. Huh? Right. They don't believe the report. Now these guys have seen Jesus themselves. It's true. He's alive. And what does Thomas say? No. Uh-uh. No way. Right? This gospel preaching is really not effective at this point.

It's not banging on all cylinders quite yet, right? It's not the problem with the gospel, though. It's the problem with unbelief within us. So all of the disciples said, we've seen the Lord. But he said, unless I see his hands in the mark of the nails and place my finger into the marks of the nails, place my hand on his side.

Get this. He doesn't say, I'm going to stay on the fence. He says, I will never believe. He's not doubting Thomas. He's non-believing Thomas. Totally different thing altogether. But watch this. Jesus doesn't rebuke him.

Because what's that wonderful prayer? Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief. Right? So Jesus, merciful Jesus, who has bled and died even for Thomas' unbelief, says, comes back eight days later. It's Sunday again.

Notice the rhythm here. Jesus is not appearing on the Sabbath, which is Saturday. He's now appearing Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. Ah. This is why we gather on the Lord's day, not on Saturday, the Sabbath.

Right? So eight days his disciples were again inside. Thomas was with him, although the doors were locked. This time it doesn't say for fear of the Jews. Maybe they've gotten into the habit, well, it's better that we keep the doors locked.

Right? Still not quite the guys from Acts 5. Jesus came and stood among them again. Again he says, peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here, see my hands. Put your hand and place it in my side.

No special treatment. The other disciples were able to do this as well. And then it says in the Greek, the Greek is so much better, do not be disbelieving, but be believing. That's the way it works out with the verb tenses.

Do not be disbelieving, but be believing. Thomas' response to him is, my Lord and my God. A confession of faith. A confession of belief. And you'll notice here he calls Jesus both Lord and God, because that's who Jesus is.

He is both Lord and God. And Jesus doesn't rebuke him for calling him God and Lord. Jesus says to him, have you believed because you've seen me? And now watch this. This is for us. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

You see the atheists today will say, I will not believe unless I see Jesus myself. Oh, but we're not given to see Jesus. The disciples were. It is the apostolic preaching, those who were sent to make disciples, the eyewitnesses who we listen to.

And so here's the question for you, kind of a little side note. Mary Magdalene shows up, I've seen the Lord. The disciples go, nah. Jesus shows up to the disciples and says, and they say to Thomas, we've seen the Lord.

And Thomas says, nah. Right? But now Mary Magdalene, Thomas, Peter, and the rest of the disciples proclaim to you today, we have seen the Lord and that he is risen indeed. And how do we respond? He's risen.

He's risen indeed. Absolutely. And Jesus says of you, although your eyes have not seen and you are blessed, you are blessed. What an amazing thing. What a gracious God. How kind Jesus is. And John puts in this little note here.

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. And here's the best part. But these things are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God.

And that by believing you might have life in his name. You mean simply by believing? Yeah. Simply by believing eternal life you are blessed. Now this is kind of the thing that's going on here. So something has changed and I'm beginning to wonder if what has caused this radical transformation in our disciples who are now the apostles has something to do with the fact that they have seen the risen Lord that he has breathed on them the Holy Spirit that they have received the Holy Spirit with power of the day of Pentecost.

And now we see something absolutely radical. The men who are behaving like schoolgirls, the men who are up in the upper room shaking in their knees knocking and they're prone to wet themselves if somebody knocks too loudly on the door for fear of the Jews, right?

These men now have radically changed. So much so that they have not a care in the world for their own safety. Not a care at all. So we come back to Acts 5 to the part where they are arrested. The high priest rose up and all who were with him as a party of the Sadducees filled with jealousy.

They arrested the apostles, put them in the public prison. But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out and said, go stand in the temple, speak to the people all the words of this life.

This is awesome. This is awesome. We're going to let you out. Go ahead and go get arrested again. This is not how prison breaks work. And only with Christ, only with God is something like this able to happen.

And only with men who have absolutely been radically transformed to where they go from being in fear to speaking so boldly because they know that what they're preaching is true. There are the circulation of the report that was put out from the Jews regarding the explanation as to why the tomb was empty, which by the way is absolutely fascinating because even the enemies of Christ admit the tomb was empty.

Their explanation is the disciples stole the body. Right? Which means that all of Jesus's resurrection appearances were like the movie, you know, that party with Bernie or whatever. You know, the corpse guy, you know, right?

Hey, look, it's Jesus. Say hi, Jesus. Hi, I'm alive. Right? And this instilled such confidence in them that they were absolutely, they don't care about their life. I don't think so. I don't think so at all.

So when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak as the angel told them to, and they began to teach just like the angel told them to. We just got arrested yesterday. Right? Now when the high priest came and those who were with them, they called together the council, all the Senate, the people of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought.

But when the officers came, they did not find them in prison, so they returned and reported, we found the prison securely locked, the guards standing at the doors, but when we opened them, we found no one inside.

Now when the captain of the temple and the chief priest heard these words, they were greatly perplexed. At this point, the prison sirens start going off. Right? Yeah? They were perplexed, wondering what this would come to, and someone came and said to them, you're not going to believe this.

No, you're really not going to believe this. Look, the men you put in prison, they're standing in the temple and they're teaching the people. These guys are outrageous. Right? And that's a sign to them.

It's an absolute sign to these men. This is a miracle for them, these Sadducees, these religious leaders. We were sprung out of prison because God let us out. Oh, and he told us to go preach again, and we're going to continue to preach.

And rather than repent, rather than say we've never met men with such boldness, well, the story goes a little differently. So the captain with the officers, they went and brought them, not by force, they were afraid of being stoned by the people.

Who's afraid now, right? And when they had brought them, they set them before the council, and the high priest questioned them, saying, we strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you fill Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us.

And you can almost see Peter saying, yeah, did you notice that we were out of prison? Did you see that little factoid? Yeah, you notice that little thing right there? That's called a miracle, right? So Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men.

The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging on a tree. God exalted him in his right hand as leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and the forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things.

Witnesses. How do you explain such a radical change? If Christ has not been raised from the dead, how do you explain how these men go from fear and trembling to the most outrageous and bold prison break ever in the history of mankind?

There is only one explanation. He's risen, just like he said. These men are eyewitnesses. And Jesus comes to us today, this eighth day. This first day of the new creation. And he says to us, peace, because he is truly bled and died for our sins.

The fact that he is bodily been raised from the grave demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that his sacrifice, his bodily sacrifice, his blood shed for us was received by God the father and truly works our salvation.

And so Jesus comes to us today. He will be here this morning in with and under the bread and the wine bodily present body of Christ, the blood of Christ broken and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins so that you can hear from his mouth and receive in your mouth peace and forgiveness and know that you have a right standing with God.

He has not come to chastise you this morning. He's come to bind your wounds. He's come to speak peace to you. And these things were written so that you would believe that he's the Christ and that by believing you might have life in his name.

What an amazing story. What an amazing savior. And the best part is it's all true. In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

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