JOHN 20 V 19/31

The Gospel passage for this Sunday comes from John’s gospel in Chapter 20, and is the story of Jesus appearance to His Apostles in the Upper Room on the evening of the first Easter Sunday.

The Apostles were in the Upper Room terrified, in fear for their lives. This was because rumours had been spread around Jerusalem that they must have stolen the body and they feared the authorities might take action against them.

The doors were firmly shut yet Jesus appeared in the room to their amazement, but also joy. This suggests that His body was a supernatural body, and so if we are to be like Him in heaven, our future bodies will also be supernatural. Jesus was giving a demonstration in confirmation He was alive. This was no animation of a corpse; it was Jesus in a new form of being which could pass through doors.

You can imagine the reaction of the Apostles who must have thought they were hallucinating, for most people do at some time have visions, especially if you are longing for someone whom you never expected to see. The Apostles were delighted to see the Lord however.

Jesus greeted them with the traditional Jewish greeting Shalom, words which mean not only ‘peace be with you’, but every kind of blessing. He then showed them His hands and side to prove that it was the same Jesus they had known when they were with Him, but by showing His wounds it verified that this was the Jesus who had been on the Cross and was now an alive person.

Jesus then when parting He again said ‘peace be with you’ as a form of good-bye, and then breathed on them. At His baptism the Holy Spirit was poured out on Jesus, and He now tells the Apostles as God had given Him the Holy Spirit, He (Jesus) was giving them the power of the Holy Spirit to go out and tell the world about His offer of eternal salvation, for all who accepted and believed in Him. If anyone did not, they were condemned eternally.

Jesus also said He was giving them the Holy Spirit in which they could forgive people’s sins, or if necessary to refuse to do so. It is from this passage that the Churches of Catholic persuasion, Roman or Anglican, claim authority to pronounce absolution. This is contrary to Scripture which teaches that only God can give forgiveness, and there is nothing in the Bible that I can find which supports priestly absolution.

Every Christian can seek forgiveness from God directly, but if we are considering wanting to make a confession of sins and seeking assurance, then for good order and discipline one could reasonably state a priest is the person to approach rather than just any member of the Church. I have known instances where people have met for study groups and during the meeting been invited and encouraged to speak out on personal troubles, which is quite seriously unwise as there is no moral demands on friends to keep confidentiality. There is no doubt that by talking out a worrying matter, it can ease one’s mind, but a priest (or ordained minister) is the one who should be approached, bound as he is not to reveal any confidence

What Jesus is meaning is that when the Apostles were convinced a person had truly repented of their sins and accepted Jesus as Saviour, they could be assured God had forgiven them; but if as on a later occasion when Peter was not assured of a person’s sincerity, they could not be given assurance of forgiveness

At this first meeting of Jesus with the Apostles, Thomas was not present but he was told by the other Apostles what had taken place, and Thomas being known for his scepticism refused to believe them. He stated he would never believe they had seen Jesus unless he placed his hand and finger in the wounds.

Thomas was just and ordinary fellow who didn’t know the full story and wanted proof. A week later however he is back with them in the Upper Room when Jesus again appears and Thomas realises his lack of faith and makes the confession with the deeply committed words, ‘my Lord and my God’. AND he never did put his hand or finger near Jesus’ wounds.

Jesus then said words which resonate powerfully today. ‘Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.’

We must not criticise Thomas, it must have been hard to believe that someone so cruelly put to death should appear alive, it was a unique act in all history and people do have imaginary visions. How many times have you heard people telling of having seen tears fall from a statue, or of people being touched on the forehead and then falling to the floor in convulsions at some charismatic meeting?

Jesus wanted to show the Apostles, and by extension to Christians through the ages, that His was a tangible bodily resurrection, and there was much evidence to prove so. The resurrection has been attested to by witnesses both inside and out of the Church. It has never been doubted there was an empty tomb, so where did the body go. Would men risk their lives without confidence and personal experience?


Of course the liberal lobby in the Church today would prefer to go with the doubters and suggest it was a theoretical and spiritual resurrection rather than a physical one. The Bible, God’s divinely given Word, is sadly challenged too often. Is God not to be trusted?


We are so lucky in having such wonderful technology which few of us can explain how it works, but we believe because we see it. Why challenge the God who made the earth as being incapable of anything just because you don’t understand how he did it. This is what separates true believers from fake; faith means believing what you can’t see or explain.

Our Lord then commissioned them to go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything he had commanded, and gave them the power to proclaim absolution to those worthy and to refuse those who were not. There is nowhere in the Bible however where priestly absolution is authorised.

John ends his chapter telling there were so many other stories he could have told about Jesus and His life and works, but he has obviously selected those with the greatest spiritual significance and for the prime purpose that all who read his gospel may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.

Jesus has passed on the mission to the Church all down the ages to go out and speak for His message, so that when people hear that message from us, they are indirectly hearing the words of our Lord. This is what the church of Jesus Christ is fundamentally and essentially here for; preaching the gospel Jesus left us, abandoning all fancy ideas of pleasing society. We don’t go saying the Bible states, but I have a better idea, we say exactly what Jesus said, so that indirectly what we say is Jesus speaking.

.The first essential is to recognise we are in a war against the combined forces of secularism, humanism and the LGBT lobby, all of which seek to restrict, eradicate or amend the gospel we are charged with preaching. We have in fact to be on a war footing, and be equally aggressive in spreading our message.

God wants us to be the hands feet and voice of Jesus. I believe one essential practice for the Church is to emulate business. Firms spend millions of pounds advertising, so it must pay off or they wouldn’t do so. Much of what little advertising the Church does is banal and unappealing, except perhaps to its own people.

We have to realise we can’t make a Church grow by just being here, it is just not going to happen. Whereas people will not pick up a magazine and read it, they will look at the internet; so we need to tell them what WE believe, letting them know what they can expect if they attend. In today’s world there are wonderful opportunities through the internet.

We are on the Lord’s business and have a unique product which no one else can offer, and we have to make sure people hear about it; there is an excellent opportunity to do this via the internet.

Jesus told Peter, ‘feed my sheep’. He meant teach the Word of God. Open their minds to the thoughts of God. People are not thinking the thoughts of God, not looking at life the way God sees it, but following blindly after the fantasies and the illusions of the world. What is necessary is the unfolding of the mind of God in obedience to the word of Jesus: "Teach the word." The weakness of the church flows from a famine of the Word of God.

Far too many submit to the universal belief that all will go to heaven so we don’t need to believe Jesus died just to save those who accept Him as Saviour. God however allows us all free choice, but we will have to live with the choice we make, and one day those who doubt that a personal commitment to accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour is necessary, will have a consequence too awful to contemplate. .

You may well ask, ‘how can we a small suburban church with not a huge congregation, many of whom are perhaps older in years, do very much?’ Hudson Taylor who founded the China Inland Mission was once asked why God had chosen him. Taylor replied `because God wanted someone small.' When God acts it is not in big cathedrals.

An American Christian programme following the September 11th attack on its country asked all its listeners to pray for fifteen minutes a day for fifty days for a revival and to phone in and say where they were from. A coloured pin was then placed on a wall map of the United States at their location. Within days the map was covered as people responded. Most of them were small churches, perhaps even smaller than this, but they reported new life and new people.

In the absence of any person with sufficient charisma (and courage) in the Church nationally to exert the nation to worship, each individual Church has to be evangelistic.

God acted when a Minister came to the small island of Lewis in the Hebrides when people prayed that God would bless them. Evan Roberts a Minister in South Wales prayed and started the Welsh Revival. There are many examples of answered prayer for revival.

Neither is age relevant. When the Israelites were attacked by the Amalekites, Moses and Aaron were too old to fight, but as the younger men fought they prayed and every time they did so the Israelites advanced. Older people can play a vital role in revival as one elderly lady discovered. She prayed constantly for a revival to start in her area. Subsequently it was announced that Billy Graham was to hold a Crusade in a nearby town.

When you receive Communion this Sunday you are part of a tradition which has been passed down from that Upper Room. Many people have tried, and are now trying harder than ever to take Christianity out of public life, but while empires have come and gone, the Christian Church has survived, and millions and millions of people have found their lives enriched by their faith, and the words of Jesus are still relevant, ‘the gates of hell will not prevail against it’. There may be resistance in this ands other Western nations, but in Africa, China and beyond there is massive turning to the Lord Jesus. Be encouraged by them and may God bless all your efforts.