“Meeting Jesus Changes Everything” Acts 9.1-22 Easter 3C May ‘25

 

 

1.                Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word today for the 3^rd Sunday of Easter is taken from Acts 9:1-22. Here we see that Saul meets Jesus, and everything changes. Today we discover that when we meet Jesus, everything changes. Meeting Jesus, risen and alive, makes a difference in every area of our lives. The message is entitled, “Meeting Jesus Changes Everything,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                I would like you to remember a time in your life when who you were and where you were headed changed. Something happened that altered the trajectory of your life. Maybe a new relationship, a job change, a different college major, a death of someone close to you, a tragedy, or an amazing celebration. But now you’re headed in a different direction. You’ve changed. Life has changed. This weekend our Confirmands are going through a life changing event, confirming the faith they received in their baptism, and promising to remain faithful to Jesus as their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for the rest of their lives.

3.                For me, one such time was back in my first year of college. I had planned to be a business major. I remember my first year at Concordia University St. Paul, back in 1999. I was taking my general education courses and quickly discovered that math wasn’t my strong suit. I was having difficulty in my Statistics and Precalculus classes and quickly realized that the Lord had prepared me through my upbringing in Lutheran Education to consider becoming a Pastor, especially since when I was in Confirmation Class in the mid ‘90s, my Pastor John Zahrte had taken me aside and told me that I should consider becoming a Pastor. So, I changed my major to Theology and began my Pre-Seminary Classes. As I look back now, 26 years since I entered college, I can see how the trajectory of my life changed since that first year in college. Do you have a time in your life, maybe a big event, or some smaller times put together, where you see your life changed?

4.                The apostle Paul, as a young man known by his Hebrew name, Saul, could name such a time. Saul wanted to eliminate the church. He starts wreaking havoc on those who follow the way of Jesus shortly after Christ’s resurrection. He’s determined to find every last Christian and have them thrown into jail or murdered. When Stephen proclaims how the Old Testament is fulfilled in Jesus and his resurrection, Saul listens, with hatred in his heart. When the stones rain down on Stephen, making him the first martyr of the church, Saul nods his head in agreement. He receives the garments laid at his feet to show he approves of this gruesome death.

5.                Then comes the defining moment of his life. Saul is traveling to Damascus, papers in hand to arrest anyone who claims Jesus as Lord and Savior. Suddenly the blinding light flashes, and Saul comes face to face with Jesus: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Saul can only ask, “Who are you, Lord?” Now Saul will hear words that will change him forever. “I am Jesus.” Imagine how those words must have stung when Saul heard him. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”

6.                Saul can’t see. He has to be led into Damascus. For three days, he waits, fasts, and remembers all that he has done to ravage the church. For three days, “I am Jesus” penetrates every thought, feeling, and bone in his body. It will be the defining moment of his life. Now the Old Testament comes alive like never before as he realizes the prophecies have been fulfilled in Jesus. Now Stephen’s testimony comes back to haunt him—but also to give him life. Now he knows everything is about to change.

7.                Ananias arrives. He lays his hands on Saul. Eyesight restored. Filled with the Holy Spirit. Baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus. He eats. He is strengthened by food and by the welcome from Ananias. From someone who once feared him and whom he had hated, Saul hears another blessed word: “Brother.” Ananias calls him a brother in the faith, a fellow follower of Jesus. Saul has joined the church.

8.                Listen to what has changed. From writing letters to arrest believers to writing letters upon which the church has relied on and will rely on until Jesus comes back again. From one who brought such suffering to the church, he will now suffer for the name of Jesus. From one who arrested believers, he will now be arrested time and again. From one who was so zealous to liquidate the church, he now starts churches in city after city. From one who was hated and feared, he now is welcomed as an apostle of Christ. From one who has depended on what he did and his family background to be right with God, he now depends solely on Christ for his righteousness in the sight of God. Those words changed everything for Saul. “I am Jesus.” Paul, as we better remember him now, met the resurrected Jesus, alive and glorified, and everything changed.

9.                None of us will have that same dramatic experience that Paul had. But we are changed by the risen Jesus just the same. Here’s how. Paul needed forgiveness. He needed to repent. He needed faith. He needed Jesus. He certainly needed all this for what he had done to the church before his conversion. But after that visit by Ananias, don’t put Paul on a pedestal. Don’t make him perfect. When he wrote the letter to the Romans years later, he confessed that the good he wanted to do, he still didn’t always do. The evil he wanted to avoid, sometimes he ended up doing anyway. He wanted to delight in God’s Law, but the law of sin still plagued him. Listen to his confession: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24). But Paul knew Jesus had died for the sins of the whole world. So, he answers his own question. “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:25). You can hear his confidence in his forgiveness when he goes on to say, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1).

10.             Paul also proclaims what more Jesus did for him—and what Jesus, risen from the dead, does for us too. Listen carefully: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Rom 8:11). Just like Paul, we need to repent. We need faith. We need forgiveness. We need Jesus.

11.             I remember a pastor I knew who admitted that when he was young he misheard one word in our confession of sins: “I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto You all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended You and justly deserved Your temporal and eternal punishment. But I am heartily sorry for them” (LSB, p 291). It was the word “heartily” he messed up. He said instead that he was “hardly” sorry for his sins. That changes everything. He was saying he wasn’t all that sorry for what he did wrong. But then he realized what needed to be said. So do we. We need to be heartily sorry for them and truly repent of them.

12.             You need Jesus, risen from the dead, to forgive you. I do too. And remember, Jesus forgave Paul, who’d tried to destroy the church, and no longer condemned him. He forgives you for whatever haunts your life, whatever you heartily confess in repentance. Blessed words. “I am Jesus. Risen from the dead. I do not condemn you. You are mine forever.” That changes everything, for now we stand righteous in God’s eyes.

13.             I wasn’t quite accurate when I said we haven’t had a dramatic experience like Paul did that changed his whole life. For many of us, we did. Not in the same way as Paul had that day. No blinding light. No words we could hear Jesus speak in his own voice from heaven. But we did meet Jesus, and he spoke to us in a way that changed our lives. At the moment of your baptism, you met Jesus. Through the sacrament of baptism you have new birth and the forgiveness of sins. The white garment received in baptism shows you’ve been clothed with Christ’s righteousness so you don’t need to fear Christ’s judgment seat. The burning light shows you now walk in the light, not the darkness. Then, you were welcomed as a sister or brother in Christ. Paul heard Ananias say, “Brother” (Acts 9:17). If you were baptized as a baby, you do not remember that moment, but the Rite of Baptism in our hymnal suggests what the congregation said: “We welcome you in the name of the Lord.”

14.             What happened to Paul happens to us. Jesus comes to each one of us and says, “I am Jesus. I am your brother. You need not fear what you have done. You are forgiven. You are covered by my righteousness. No condemnation. Just an eternity with all your brothers and sisters and the whole host of heaven.” That moment has changed everything for you and me. Meeting Jesus, risen and alive, makes a difference in every area of our lives.

15.             The trajectory of our lives is now forever joined to the risen Jesus. He meets us every day of our lives to give us direction and purpose. Who we are has been determined by our Lord and Savior, alive and present in every part of life. What we say or don’t say, do or don’t do, think or don’t think, what we do with our time or money, how we treat others, how we take care of ourselves. The whole of our lives is lived under those wonderful words: “I am Jesus, and by your baptism into my death and resurrection, you are welcomed into my church, to share eternity with your brothers and sisters in the faith.” Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.

 

“Believing Thomas” John 20:19–31 Easter 2C, April ‘25

 

 

1.               Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts, be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word is entitled, “Believing Thomas,” and is taken from John 20:19-31. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.               I’m the apostle John. Many of you know me as one of the writers of the New Testament—the Gospel of John or the book of Revelation or the three little letters that I wrote. But, today I’m here to talk about one of the other disciples, Thomas. Now, most of the time you only hear about Thomas this week after Easter, and then you call him Doubting Thomas. Today, I want to let you know that’s not how you should remember him. Much more went on with Thomas than just a week where he had trouble believing Jesus had risen from the dead. I’m going to go back and tell you a few things that I know about Thomas.

3.               All of us who wrote the Gospels list Thomas as one of the disciples. He saw Jesus touch a leper and heal him. He saw Jesus cast out a demon and silence that demonic spirit. He saw a paralytic lowered down through a roof and Jesus forgive the man.  Then, so we’d know he could do that, Jesus healed him. We all saw it. Thomas was there when Jesus fed five thousand men, plus women and children. Yes, Thomas was there with us throughout Jesus’ ministry.

4.               But Thomas has his moments where he stands out. For example, when Jesus’ good friend Lazarus became sick, we weren’t in Judea where Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, lived. The religious leaders back there wanted to kill Jesus, so we were off beyond the Jordan where it was safer. When we got the word that Lazarus was sick, that Jesus was to come and help, Jesus didn’t go right away. He waited for a couple days, and then he told us we were going back to Judea because Lazarus had died.

5.               It was dangerous to go back. Why go back now if Lazarus is already dead? But when Jesus makes up his mind, you don’t change it. And Thomas speaks up. He says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” Thomas showed his loyalty, that he was willing to die for Jesus. The words he spoke showed that he’d walk into danger to stay with Jesus. A disciple is someone who is loyal to Jesus. A disciple will die to himself, to herself, to be with Jesus. Thomas did that. He followed Jesus, even when it meant going somewhere you usually don’t want to go.

6.               So, we went with Jesus. When we arrived, we saw Jesus bring Lazarus out of the tomb, where he had been dead for four days. We saw something amazing. We saw that Jesus was the very Son of God. Only God could bring the dead back to life again. Part of the reason we went with Jesus to Judea was because of Thomas. I always admired Thomas for his loyalty.

7.               Then there was that night in the Upper Room when we were having our Last Supper with Jesus. It was a Thursday. Jesus knew what was going to happen. He gave us words of comfort for what would happen next with His suffering and death. He told us that his Father in heaven had a place with many rooms and that he was to prepare a place for us. He warned us that he would be gone for a little while, but when he came back, he would take us there. Then Jesus said that we knew the way to where he was going. Guess who was the one who was honest enough to admit he didn’t have a clue about this way. Thomas. Thomas asked Jesus, “Lord, we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?” That was Thomas. Honest and humble. Willing to let everyone know he was confused and needed help understanding where Jesus was headed and why.

8.               Jesus’ response to Thomas wasn’t one of accusation. Instead, Jesus, says one of the most amazing sentences I ever heard him speak. Jesus declared exactly what he had come to do. Listen to his words: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If you were to take all that I wrote and summarize it into a couple sentences, those words would do it. The only way we would be welcomed into those many rooms in the Father’s house would be through Jesus. He spoke the simple truth that when we look to Jesus in faith, eternal life would be ours. We heard those words because honest, humble Thomas asked Jesus that question about where he was going and the way there.

9.               What happened next filled in the details of where Jesus was going. Later that same Thursday night, when we all ran away, Jesus would be arrested. His way would lead to suffering and being beaten, bruised, and bloodied. Finally, he would be raised up on a cross. On that Friday, Jesus became the way for us disciples, for all of you, to the Father’s house. On that cross, he took all our doubts, fears, all the things we may have done wrong, anything that would have kept us from eternal life. That Thursday night, that Friday and Saturday, we were in hiding. But Jesus showed he was preparing a place for us in his Father’s house.

10.            Then on Easter day, we found out that Jesus truly was the life. We had heard from the women who’d gone to the tomb that Jesus had risen from the dead. Peter and I ran there and investigated. But we hadn’t seen Jesus. Later that evening, we were up in a room, still afraid. Jesus appeared and showed us he was alive. He spoke a word of peace to us. We saw his hands and side. We knew at that moment where true life was found. Jesus was the way to true life for all eternity. No one else could take us to the Father and the home that was waiting for us.

11.            But, Thomas wasn’t there. Throughout that next week, we kept telling him that we saw Jesus, that he was alive. But Thomas kept insisting that unless he could see it for himself and touch Jesus’ wounds, he would not believe. Can you blame him? He saw Jesus crucified, dead, and buried. I don’t know if I would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. But Thomas didn’t walk away. He hung with us. The following Sunday evening, Thomas was right there in the room. We all watched as Jesus appeared. He walked right up to Thomas and invited him to touch his hands, to put his hand into his side. Thomas saw and made one of the boldest confessions of belief ever. We all heard him say, “My Lord and my God!”

12.            If you want to remember Thomas, remember that. He is not Doubting Thomas. He is Believing Thomas. He truly believed in Jesus as his Lord and God. He believed that Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life. He believed that Jesus would bring him to the Father and the room prepared for him. I always admired Thomas for that bold confession. After Thomas made that good confession, Jesus looked at him and said, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” I want you to imagine that Jesus is giving you a quick glance because you have believed even though you haven’t seen and touched him like we did. At that moment, Jesus is including you with Thomas, with all of us in that Upper Room, showing you the true way to the rooms the Father has prepared for you.

13.            I have one more word about Thomas. It happened later. We were waiting for Jesus to ascend into heaven and for the Holy Spirit to come and form the church. One day, Peter decides to go fishing. I went with him, with a couple other disciples, and Thomas. We don’t catch anything until Jesus appears on the shore. He tells us to cast our nets on the right side of the boat. We catch 153 fish. We know it’s Jesus, and Peter dashes to the shore, leaving the rest of us to pull in the fish. Soon, Thomas is with us, listening to Jesus, having breakfast with him. Thomas listens as Jesus sends out Peter to tend his people, his sheep. Then we realize that Jesus was sending us out too.

14.            What happened to us disciples? I (John) was exiled to an island and lived to an older age. I heard that the other disciples were each martyred for telling others about Jesus. I heard that Thomas might have made it all the way to India where he was killed. The story I heard was that a spear was thrust through him. That would be fitting, since he was the one who was invited to touch Jesus’ side where the spear had pierced our Lord. Put all these times together, and you realize you should not call him Doubting Thomas. No, He was loyal, devoted, courageous, honest, humble—one who makes a bold confession and backs up what he says. I would call him Believing Thomas. For that is what Jesus called him to do.

15.            So what can you learn from Thomas? Well, you get to see is what it means to be a disciple. The disciple dies to himself, lives for Jesus. To follow Jesus, the one who was crucified for you, the one who has risen from the dead to be your way to the Father, means you find what needs to die. You see what needs to come to life. When we were with Jesus, he taught us much about money and possessions. He told us you can’t serve God and money. One of the original disciples, Judas, was the treasurer of our group. But he got too attached to money. It led him astray. Look inside yourself. What kind of hold do you have on money or does it have on you? That hold needs to die.

16.            What needs to come alive? How you use money to care for others? Jesus calls on you to feed the hungry. Clothe those who don’t have enough to wear. Comfort those who are grieving. When you show that kind of generosity, you’re dying to those selfish things that hold on to you, and you’re living as a disciple. In fact, Jesus said when you do these things for the least of all people, you’ve done them to him.

17.            Thomas teaches you to back up your words by what you do. Now, you aren’t expected to go all the way to India. But you can do something closer to home. Thomas left that breakfast on the beach to go out and tend to those whom he met along the way. Let’s say you go out to eat for breakfast, maybe after church where you’ve just heard Jesus speak to you in the sermon. The food arrives. You say a prayer, and people see you bow your head and fold your hands. You’ve done a good thing, letting others see you give thanks for the food you’re eating.

18.            But now you need to back up that quiet confession of Jesus as Lord and God in your life. You do that by treating the server with respect. The bill comes, and you leave a tip that will make your server smile. Do you see how that works? Thomas had a huge opportunity to back up his words. You have so many everyday, common ways to do the same.

19.            One other thing Thomas can teach you today. Thomas stuck with us and worked alongside us. He gave a strong confession for us to see and hear. He was faithful Thomas, and that made a huge difference for the rest of us. In other words, you can do just what you’re doing right now—gathering together to be with other believers. To be there for someone else.

20.            Today, remember Thomas not as doubting, but as loyal, brave, devoted, living as a disciple for Jesus, humble, honest, someone who backs up his words by what he does. Remember Thomas this day as the one who did just what Jesus called him to do. He is Believing Thomas! Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.