Sermon Notes For The First Sunday After Easter: Gospel: 20:19

It is now Easter Evening. The Lord has been crucified and then risen from the dead. Some of the female disciples of the Lord had seen Him, as He appeared unto them. Jesus would appear to Peter in a glorified body in Jerusalem, manifesting His human nature and divine nature. What an amazing contrast this would have been to the bloodied and mangled body of Jesus. The injuries that the Lord suffered by the Roman authorities would have made any first responder at least a little uneasy. The prophet Isaiah, writing 800 years before the birth of Christ, comments on the hideously battered state of Jesus in Isaiah 52:14:

As many were astonished of thee his visage was so marred more than any man,and his form more than the sons of men.

Can imagine the three day roller coaster ride that the disciples must have been on ? They:

1.See Jesus beaten, crucified, and suffering spiritual and human pain for crimes that He did not commit.

2. Feel the incredible grief of losing their Master, and then feel the intense fear of being arrested, tried, and being killed like Jesus was.

3. Seeing in their midst, Jesus in a glorified body in the Upper Room in Jerusalem; what incredible relief and utter joy they must have felt.

As mentioned in last week?s sermon notes we see a dramatic change. Jesus was a bloodied Victim on the Cross. He was convicted for crimes He didn?t commit, and was given a punishment by the Roman leadership that was reserved for the most despicable and lowest of the low of criminals. But yet here in the Upper Room we see a Christ with a glorified body in a shimmering white rob radiating peace that the Apostle Paul stated passes all understanding: Philippians 4:7: but also power. He is now the King giving instructions to His disciples.

In the Old Testament King David in the Spring would go to battle with Israel?s enemies. He would be on the front line with his men. He was trying to expand his kingdom. In a like manner Jesus is giving His disciples instructions to go to battle and to engage in expanding His kingdom by baptizing all nations Jew and Gentile alike in the name of Trinity. Through baptism we are marked as one of Christ?s own: Ephesians 1:13. We become a new creation, and are sealed and protected via the Holy Ghost, and are inducted into the Kingdom of Heaven.

In this time, we also see a change in the disciples over time. They went from cowardly men afraid of the Jewish and Roman authorities to courageous men of faith who were killed or exiled; here is a summary of how the 12 disciples that would become Apostles died:

Peter: Crucified

John the Beloved: Exiled to Roman penal colony

Andrew: Crucified

James: : Beheaded

Philip: Beheaded or stoned to death

Bartholomew: Beheaded

Thomas: Killed with a spear

Matthew: Stoned or beheaded

Jude: Martyred how unknown

Simon the Zealot: Crucified

Matthias: Stoned to death

Paul: crucified.

I often marvel at how critics say the Bible is not relevant. But yet the passage for this Sunday after Eastertide is very relevant. The disciples in their immense fear and despair, when it seems that all is lost Jesus intervenes at the right moment. He brings power and peace. He brings Faith: the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen: Hebrews 11:1; Hope which is the willingness to receive the gifts of grace, and love which is a completion of the Law of Moses. As Christians we are to be like Him. In this season of Eastertide, be just like Christ and appear to those who seem fearful and lost and sad, and bring His peace and power with you; and remember what Jesus said in John 14:12:

Verily, verily I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father.

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