Scripture: John 20:19-31
Disregard, please, Point Number Three on back of your bulletin. I’m only covering the first two points. But as always, don’t get your hopes up… the sermon is the same length. Number One, Christ’s compassion, and Number Two, Christ’s commission.
Many, many summers ago, my family and I vacationed with several of my in-laws at the beach. We rented a condo, and we arrived at the place before check-in time. So our rooms weren’t quite ready. Housekeeping was still there. So for a while we hung out in the parking lot, waiting… But then the girls in our family had a great idea: there was a swimming pool next to the condo, so wouldn’t it be fun if the kids passed the time in the pool while we waited to check
So after getting all the kids into swimsuits and slathering them with sunscreen, my daughter, Elisa, who was no more than three or four at the time, along with all her cousins, jumped in the pool. Now I should mention here that I was the responsible adult who was supervising the kids, along with my brother-in-law. The women were dealing with checking us in. And moments after Elisa, my three- or four-year-old, jumped into the deep end, this question crossed my mind: “Does Elisa know how to swim? Wait! Elisa doesn’t know how to swim!” So I jumped in after her—in my street clothes—in order to rescue her from drowning!
See, I forgot—momentarily—that I needed to put those floatie things on her arms before she jumped in. It was probably only a split second before I realized my mistake, but it seemed much longer than that! Scary!
Elisa was fine, of course. I don’t think my momentary lapse in attention caused lasting harm. In fact, Elisa is an outstanding swimmer to this day.
But even I remember a scary moment or two, before I learned to swim… going under the water and being terrified… panicking… before my mother or father yanked me up out of the water. And I was safe.
Drowning is a universal fear. This was true when the psalmist wrote Psalm 42, verse 7:
Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me. 1
“Deep calls to deep” is a poetic way of saying, “All hope is lost.” The psalmist feels like he’s going under, he’s drowning, and there’s no one to rescue him.
But he’s not talking about literally drowning. He’s talking about feeling incredibly depressed. Verse 6: “My soul is cast down within me,” 2 or as the CSB puts it, “I am deeply depressed.” He’s talking about feeling abandoned by God. Verse 9: “I will say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about in sorrow…”3
The disciples—the ten remaining disciples, not counting Thomas, who doesn’t happen to be there, and of course Judas, who could no longer be there even if he wanted… These ten remaining disciples who are gathered together in this Upper Room behind a locked door were surely feeling the same emotions the psalmist who wrote Psalm 42 felt. Can you imagine?
Verse 19 of today’s scripture captures the disciples’ darkest moment… when it surely felt as if they were in a storm, under the waves, unable to swim, helpless, terrified, dejected, isolated, confused, without hope, abandoned by God, grieved in the deepest recesses of their souls…
Ever feel like that? If so, today’s scripture is just for you!
Let’s review briefly how the disciples got in this mess. Remember last week, we talked about Easter Sunday morning. The women who go to the tomb encounter angels who announce the good news of resurrection. They go back to tell the other disciples—who don’t believe them. At some point at least some of those women encounter the resurrected Lord, too, including Mary Magdalene, whose encounter gets narrated earlier in John chapter 20.
In fact, you’ll recall that Jesus tells Mary, “But go find my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” 4 If we weren’t so familiar with the story, this ought to surprise us… shock us, even!
After all, if Jesus were like us, what might Jesus have told Mary to say to these disciples?
Considering how most of them abandoned Jesus in his hour of greatest need; 5considering how they fell asleep on the job when he was sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane; considering how one of them—his closest disciple—even denied knowing Jesus three times; considering how none of his disciples believed him when he told them that he would be crucified and resurrected; considering how they were nowhere to be seen while he was suffering on the cross; considering how, even now, when they should have been celebrating Easter Sunday, they’re instead cowering in fear in the upper room behind a locked door…
Considering all these things, we might expect Jesus to say to Mary, “I want you to go to those no-good, lousy, sinful, lying, cowardly traitors who call themselves my disciples, and I want you to warn them that I’m giving them one more chance not to mess things up! One more chance and then I’m through with them!”
That’s what he might have said… That’s what they deserved to hear. But no… Instead, he talks about a change in status that has happened to his disciples as a result of his death and resurrection: “Go to my brothers,” he says. “Tell them I’m going see my Father and your Father.”
There’s no anger toward these disciples. No threats… No punishment… No condemnation… Only acceptance… only love without condition… only compassion…
Why? Literally nothing has changed so far in the lives or the character of this no-good, lousy, sinful, lying, cowardly bunch of disciples! At the moment Jesus speaks these words to his disciples, they are still the exact same people they were on Maundy Thursday.
No… The only important thing that changed… here on earth… since last we saw these disciples on Thursday night when Jesus was arrested and Sunday morning when he was resurrected is… Christ’s atoning death on the cross—on which Jesus took all of our sins and suffered the death penalty for them, and suffered hell for them, in our place… so we wouldn’t have to. So that we could indeed live forever with God, as part of his family, his beloved sons and daughters through adoption.
The resurrection proves that our status before God has forever changed for the better!
So just think: If you’re in Christ, God our Father looks at you, even you—with all your sins, with all your failures, with all your mistakes, with all the messiness of your life—and he says, “Nothing you do changes how I feel about you. In my eyes you are perfect right now—even as I’m working through the Spirit to make you perfect in thought, word, and deed. I couldn’t love you more!”
Indeed, if you’re in Christ, the resurrection means that God is not mad at you; he’s not disappointed in you; he’s not wishing you were someone else; he’s not holding a grudge against you.
The resurrection means that you’re his son… You’re his daughter… Can you even imagine? He’s always on your side. He’s always working for your good. he’s always working in your favor. He’s always showing you his favor.
The resurrection means that “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, not height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 6
Going back to the fear of drowning… I have memories of the strong arms of my father pulling me up out of the water when I got in too deep. The resurrection proves that you will never be in a situation—spiritually speaking—in which our heavenly Father will fail to take care of you… fail to rescue you from lasting harm… fail to give you what’s best for you. And even when our Father decides that it’s time for you to make that transition from life on earth to an even greater life in Paradise, well… as Paul says in Philippians, that is “better by far.” 7 Don’t give up on him. Keep on trusting. He’ll show you… Just like he showed these ten frightened disciples on Easter Sunday evening.
Just like he showed Thomas one week later…
Speaking of whom, the poor guy missed the whole thing! And so what does Jesus do? He shows up for Thomas… verse 26: “Eight days later…” That means a week later, counting the first Sunday… “Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’”
So Jesus shows up for this one disciple, too. He always shows up for his disciples… and gives them exactly what they need, if not what they ask for: “See my hands… See my side… Feel them if you like.”
But notice: there’s no indication here that Thomas takes Jesus up on his invitation to feel his wounds. We can’t know for sure, but it seems like merely seeing and hearing from the Lord, in this moment, was what Thomas really needed. Of course he could have felt these wounds. Jesus has a physical body—we see him elsewhere eating and drinking and being embraced by his disciples. But it doesn’t seem like Thomas even needed to touch Jesus before Thomas, in verse 28, responded to Jesus with the deepest, fullest, truest confession of faith of anyone in the gospels: “My Lord and my God!” This is literally the only time in the gospels that someone comes right out and calls Jesus God.
What made “doubting Thomas” have so much faith all of a sudden?
I think I know… It’s because Jesus offered for Thomas to feel his wounds, his hands, and his side.
And in that moment Thomas remembers something. He remembers that in verse 25, when he told his fellow disciples, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe”… Thomas remembers that Jesus wasn’t with him and the other ten disciples when Thomas spoke those words!
And yet, Thomas realizes, “He must have been with me!” None of the other disciples told Jesus because the Bible says this is only the second encounter with Jesus that the other disciples have had since Easter.
So how does Jesus know? He’s knows because he was with them after all… Because Jesus is God.
And even here we see our Lord being incredibly compassionate. And giving us exactly what we need… even when he makes us wait. Which, let’s face it, he usually does. But he always comes through in the end.
So we can say with the psalmist,
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God. 8
That’s Point Number One… Christ’s compassion…
Number Two… Christ’s commission…
Look at verse 22: “And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”
Now, this event in the Upper Room is sometimes called “John’s Pentecost” because it seems to be a sneak preview of what will later happen in Acts chapter 2, during Pentecost.
And that’s what it is: I think it’s a living parable of what Christ will do later at Pentecost.
But we know the main reason he gives us his Holy Spirit is because of what he says to his disciples in verse 21: “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” “Even so” means “in the same way”… or “just as.” This has sometimes been called John’s version of the Great Commission: We are being sent by our Father… But don’t miss how mind-blowing this is: We are sent by the Father—get this—in the same way that the Father sent… Jesus?
Can that possibly be true? Of us?
In his commentary on today’s scripture, Frederick Dale Bruner says that verse 21 gives us disciples permission to apply John 3:16 to our lives as disciples in this way: “For God so loved the world that he gave [fill in the blank with your name] so that whosoever believes in God’s Son Jesus will have everlasting life.”
God gave you and me for this reason… God sent you and me for this reason… Do we believe it?
But I get it… Sometimes we Christians like to find ways to “wiggle out of” what Jesus plainly seems to say. And sometimes we do that with the Great Commission. We say, “Sure Jesus says, ‘As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you,’ but he isn’t speaking to little old me. Jesus is speaking to these ten—and later eleven—and later twelve apostles. And he’s speaking to the apostle Paul and a few others, of course. But we present-day Christians? C’mon! We are off the hook for evangelism and witnessing.”
There are many reasons why this is a terrible interpretation of the Great Commission, but let me just give you one especially convincing reason… in case you need one.
The main Great Commission text is Matthew 28:19-20. Most of us know it: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Grammatically speaking, when Jesus says “Go therefore,” there’s an implied you to whom he is saying “to go.” It’s the same “you” when he says, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Therefore it’s the same “you” in the last sentence, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” To the end of the age. What is the “end of the age”? When Christ returns, when both the living and the dead in Christ receive resurrection bodies, when Final Judgment happens, and when God establishes his kingdom on earth in all its fullness.
But this first generation of apostles has been with Jesus in heaven for two millennia since the time when Christ spoke this word in Matthew 28. Yes, Christ is with them too, of course. But Jesus’ concern in this verse is not with those saints who are currently resting safely with the Lord; his concern is with Christians like us—living, suffering, facing persecution in this world right now—his concern is to tell us that even in the midst of inevitable hardship and tribulation leading up to the Second Coming, he will be with us.
The same “us” who are told to go and fulfill his commission. So the Great Commission is for all disciples in this world, past, present, and future!
I hope you had a chance during Holy Week to hear my dear brother and friend in ministry Phil Hargrove, the pastor of the Presbyterian church down the street, as he shared God’s Word with us. A few weeks ago, I ran into Phil at the wonderful new Cuban place… He was there getting to know a fellow Presbyterian pastor named Brandon Hawkes. Rev. Hawkes is of a different Presbyterian denomination than my friend Phil. He’s of the PCA—the same denomination that the late Tim Keller was part of. I have two boys in midtown Atlanta who are members of a PCA church. I have great respect for this denomination.
Anyway, I met the Rev. Hawkes, gave him my card, and we’re having lunch next week.
Rev. Hawkes, you see, is planting a new Presbyterian church right here in Toccoa, Georgia. And I offered to share my experience, you know—as a fellow pastor in Toccoa over the past six years… and also as one of those few pastors who wasn’t born and raised here!
But let me ask you: Do you think Rev. Hawkes is going to succeed in this church plant? After all, there aren’t that many Presbyterians around here. And gosh, don’t they already go to Toccoa Presbyterian down the street?
Where will he possibly find people to join his church?
Do you think he’ll steal members from us? I didn’t even think about that. Maybe I shouldn’t be so friendly with the competition, huh? Uh-oh.
But I’m not worried: I got the feeling from talking to this young, energetic pastor that his heart isn’t really interested in stealing Methodists. I mean, why would it be? We don’t share his Calvinist convictions regarding “unconditional election” and “limited atonement.” And between you and me—don’t tell him this!—we Methodists could probably teach those Presbyterians a few things about what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Talk about the “frozen chosen,” am I right?
But in talking briefly with Rev. Hawkes, I also got the feeling that he’s not really interested in stealing even Presbyterians… from our brothers and sisters down the street, either.
Because I’m sure, after all, he’s seen the statistics just like I have. Eighty-five percent of our community, give or take, doesn’t go to church. Eighty-five… fifteen… eighty-five… fifteen…
I imagine that he figures that there are enough lost people around here, among that 85 percent, who are bound for hell—as both Methodists and Presbyterians believe—unless or until they repent and believe in Christ, and endure to the end. So he’s really interested in reaching the lost among the 85 percent—rather than going after the 15 percent.
So—whew!—we’re safe!
They’re not really competing with us, are they? After all, we’re not in the Great Commission “business,” are we? Oh wait…
No, even if we are, there’s no need to compete, since Jesus said, “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.” John 4:35. Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.” Matthew 9:37. If we are interested in the Great Commission, those new Presbyterians can take that side of the harvest fields, and we’ll take that other side. And good heavens, if the Baptists and the Pentecostals, and the Catholics, and the Lutherans, and the Episcopalians want to join us, we’ll all have our work cut out for us… Plenty of work to go around…
… if we are serious about joining our fellow Christians in fulfilling the Great Commission.
I mean, we’re not competing, but even if we were, let’s just think about raw numbers… Last week we had 301 in worship here. That is the largest number I’ve ever seen in six years…
Of course in “the good old days,” I know, I know… we had more.
But if we’re serious about the Great Commission, we have a huge numbers advantage, and a huge advantage in resources, over those poor new Presbyterians, right? Not even close! It’ll take them a while to catch up to us. Imagine how many more lost people we can introduce to Jesus in the meantime… before that relatively modest handful of new Presbyterians can ever catch up with us!
Or are these new Presbyterians somehow “more Christian” than we are? Or are they equipped with a different, more powerful Holy Spirit than we are?
Or will they simply love the lost people in our community more… and believe Jesus more when he says, “The fields are white for harvest”?
Because you see… I do believe Toccoa First is stuck in a very competitive business. One in which we’re very much afraid of losing, of going bankrupt—I hear this fear expressed often from many of you.
Because too often we act like we are in the business of competing with First Baptist, the Pointe, Ebenezer, the Episcopalians, and others… to hold on to all the people whose names currently are or ever have been on our rolls. This is called the “sheep-stealing” business. And it is cutthroat, as I know from bitter experience. And never mind the many new members who join us—who have joined us even recently… Every time we lose someone—one of “our own,” the old-timers, the ones who grew up here, who’ve been around a while—it’s like we’re stabbed in the gut, you know? It hurts. It hurts me!
But consider this: As far as I can tell, the ones who leave are… already saved. They’re already “in the Good Shepherd’s sheepfold.” Right? So they’re okay.
So let’s get down to brass tacks: Our church is going to lose if we continue to compete in the sheep-stealing business. The “tariffs” in that particular business are too high! They are not in our church’s favor.
But the Lord says we can all win—that all churches can win—that there is more than enough to go around—if we only shift our attention to those fields white for harvest!
Will we?