Sermon – 2nd Easter – "Like Newborn Infants" – John 20:19-31
April 19th, 2009Click play to listen to the audio version of this sermon.
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Each of the six Sundays that follow Easter Sunday have been given a Latin name which describes the theme for the Church's worship on that Sunday. Names like, "Misericordias Domini," and "Jubilate," and "Cantate," and "Rogate," and "Exaudi," roll off the tongue, and we'll try to follow them in our Easter worship this year.
Today, the 2nd Sunday after Easter, has what I think is the most delightful name. This is "Quasimodogeniti Sunday." "Quasimodo" makes me think of of the "hunchback of Notre Dame." Literally, the word means, "like newborn infants." So, this is "like newborn infant" Sunday.
The word comes from 1 Peter 2:2, which reads, "Like newborn infants, long for pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up to salvation."
The historical connections here are deep and rich. In the Early Church, the Catechumens were baptized on Easter Eve. (So Elise, you're about a week late. But better late than never!) The newly baptized were given white robes to wear, symbolizing the righteousness of Christ that they had put on in their baptism. They were to wear this robe for a week. After 8 days, or the 2nd Sunday after Easter, they took off their white robes and put on their street clothes again. And as they did so, they would be admonished with the words of Peter, "Like newborn infants, long for pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up to salvation."
So, once you've come into the church, you should start acting like a newborn infant. Crave to be fed with pure spiritual milk.
There is a very real sense in which the Christian is never weaned from nursing. Never outgrows the need to nurse on the spiritual milk of the gospel. When the Church is gathered for worship, its like a nest full of baby birds, heads cocked, mouths open, waiting for to the food we crave to be put into our mouths and our ears.
There is a myth being circulated that we're supposed to eventually leave the nest and fly on our own and fend for ourselves. The myth is, it's not good to remain like newborn infants in your faith. Eventually you get past all this confessing of sin and asking for forgiveness. Grow up, move on, progress.
Actually, we're never so grown up and mature in our faith than when we are like newborn infants who know just how totally dependant on Jesus we are. In fact, the more you grow in your faith the more you crave the pure spiritual milk of the gospel. The more of a theologian you become, the deeper you plumb the depths of God's Word, the more you will long for the clear and pure word of forgiveness, life and salvation by grace alone, for Christ's sake alone.
I. Peace To the Church A. Disciples in the Room If you want a picture of the church the way it supposed to look, it's the one in our gospel text for today. "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…" They had seen their Lord seized, scourged, nailed to a cross and sealed in a tomb. Who will feed them? How will they survive? They're huddled in fear, like newborn infants.
Certainly not the picture of the mature, grown up Church we usually have in mind. This is not the picture of the congregation just returned from the "Courageous Churches Conference." Like newborn infants, they're afraid of life without Jesus. And they are longing for the pure spiritual milk of His presence.
B. Jesus' Entrance
Jesus walks right into their fear. He comes right through the locked doors and stands among them. He doesn't even bother to knock or wait for them to invite Him to come into their hearts. He just comes to His infants as a hen to its chicks and a shepherd to His sheep. And immediately He begins to drop His food into their open and mouths and hungry hearts. "Peace be with you!"
C. Peace Food No skim milk or 2% is this. This is whole milk with all the crème still in it. Pure spiritual milk. Pure as in no additives. No laws or rules or contributions from us mixed in. Pure grace. Pure gospel.
They had been so bold and courageous before. Thomas had said, "Let us go with Him that we may die with Him." (John 11:16) But as soon as the men with swords and spears showed up, they all ran away. Thomas was probably the first.
And now He had risen from the dead. He had told the women to tell them He wanted to see them? Sounds like thrilling news – unless you've abandoned Him or denied Him. How would He treat them for their cowardly faithlessness? Oh, how, like newborn babies they craved that pure spiritual milk of grace that forgives freely and fully, by grace alone.
And that is just what He feeds them with. Absolution. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. "Peace be with you." His Words give what they say. "Peace I leave 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." "Open wide little babies. Drink deeply little children. I have drank the cup of wrath to its dregs. Now I give you the pure spiritual milk of forgiveness and life and salvation."
Oh, there's punishment for your sins alright. Don't ever think that your sins go unpunished. Its just that the innocent one is punished for the sins of the guilty ones. "The punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed." (Is.53:5).
Mark those wounds well. From those wounds comes your peace. Those wounds are your assurance that you have a God of mercy who will go to any length to give His babies what they need, what they will die without, what only He can give them, forgiveness and life and salvation. When your heart condemns you and you say that even God couldn't forgive you, recall those wounds and the blood that flowed from them. Let His blood speak a better word to you than the blood of Abel, which cried out for revenge. And let those wounds preach to you saying, "God is greater than your heart." (1 John 3:20).
D. Shows Them His Wounds "After he said this he showed them his hands and side. And the disciples were glad." He does the same thing still. He never changes. He comes to you, His little children, and announces His peace. "The peace of the Lord be with you." And He puts His wounded body into your hands and pours out His precious blood in your mouth. And, like newborn babies who have tasted the goodness of the Lord, we are at peace with a peace that this world cannot give.
A second time Jesus speaks His Word of peace. "Peace be with you." With His first word of "peace" He sets them free from all of their fear and fills their heart with joy. Now with the second word of "peace" He sends them to feed others with His forgiveness and love. "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."
Just as Jesus was sent by His Father to speak on His behalf, so now Jesus sends His disciples. From this point forward, all newborn babies are fed this divine food through the word of the Apostles.
E. He Breathed On Them.
"And with that he breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them they are not forgiven.'" In the beginning, He had breathed into that lifeless man He had fashioned out of dust of the ground, and the man became a living being. Now, now He breathes on these lifeless disciples of His and fills them with new life. He had breathed on the dry bones in the desert and they had come together into a vast army, so now He breathes on these dry boned disciples and they become the "one, holy, Christian and apostolic Church."
See what He's doing here? He's binding His Word to their mouths. If they remained silent, so would His Word and His little babies will starve or worry themselves to death. They are to speak His forgiveness to all who hungered for divine forgiveness. And all who hear their word, the apostolic word, are to receive it as from the Lord Himself.
F. Thomas Which brings us to Thomas. He wasn't there when Jesus was present and fed His newborn babies and showed them His wounds breathed on them. See what happens when you miss Church?
But the disciples do what they have been breathed on to do. "So the other disciples told him, 'We have seen the Lord.'" Actually, it would read better if it said, "So the other disciples kept on telling him, 'We have seen the Lord.'"
But Thomas cannot believe it. The apostolic Word is not enough for Thomas. He must have more. He's no baby. He's too mature for this. He has a scientific mind that demands evidence. "Unless I see the nail marks in His hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand in His side, I will not believe it."
G. Jesus Comes To Thomas One week later and we come to the 2nd Sunday of Easter. That's today. Once again, the disciples are in the room with the doors locked. Still afraid. Still unsure. Like newborn babies, they don't learn things the first time. Things have to be repeated, over and over again, week after week actually.
Eventually, they would open the doors. And Caiaphas and his thugs would do to them what they had done to Jesus. But by then their faith had matured and they so longed to be with Jesus in His glory and see Him as He is and sit at His heavenly banquet table that they considered death for the sake of Jesus an honor and left this world a confession of faith on their lips and a song in their hearts, speaking that word of forgiveness in the name of Jesus that they had been given to speak.
But on this night, Thomas was with them. And Jesus once again entered the room, right though the doors and feeds His little babies once again. The same pure spiritual milk. "Peace be with you." You just can't get enough of that.
Once again, He shows everyone in the room His wounds. "Then He said to Thomas, put your finger here; see my hands; reach out your hand and put it into my side. Do not disbelieve but believe.'" And by the power of that Word to create faith in the heart, Thomas responded "My Lord and my God."
Tradition tells us that after the day of Pentecost, Thomas traveled all the way to India where he preached about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness, life and salvation that He won for all through faith in Him. There, he was martyred for the faith by being speared to death. Yet even to this day, there exists in India a group of people who call themselves, "Christians of St. Thomas."
The same crucified and resurrected Jesus comes into this room to be with us today. By His words and by His wounds, by His breath and by His Spirit, He is here to feed you with the pure spiritual milk of His forgiveness and His life and His peace. Be like newborn infants. "Do not be disbelieving but believe."
Happy quasimodogeniti.
Related Entries:
» Sermon Index – Lutheran – LCMS» Worship Schedule
» Sermon – Easter – "The Shock Of Easter" – Luke 24:1-12 – 4/8/07
» Sermon – Easter 2 – "Converting Disbelief to Belief" – John 20:19-29 – 3/30/08
» The Season Of Lent
» Sermon – Easter 7 – "One With Jesus" – John 17:20-26 – 5/20/07
