John 20:19-25 New International Version (NIV)

Jesus Appears to His Disciples

¹⁹ On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

²¹ Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” ²² And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Gospel passage for this Sunday 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. 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.

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 an ordinary bloke 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. 

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?

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.  

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.

In the absence of any charismatic person at the head of the Church nationally, each Church has to have its own agenda for carrying out our Lord’s command.

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 feet and hands 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.

In today’s world there are wonderful opportunities through the internet. Many Churches have their own website but often don’t use to advantage, omitting any attempts at evangelising, but including only what has happened since the previous issue and mentioning different people who like to see their efforts recorded.

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.

For 16 years I published my Church’s magazine before we were all on computers. I have confidence a Church site to which people can relate to and understand what their message is, can and will do very well within its own area, and stimulate people to respond if it has the right content, and challenges them.

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. 

Churches can do this by telling in detail about their services,

what the theme is for each service and who will preach;

 have bible studies;  have transcripts of sermons included;

tell how Christians are being harassed and suffering in this country because of their beliefs; inform on general Christian news; remind them of the blessings they enjoy living in picturesque places with lovely homes, free from the anti social behaviour of the towns, and how a little appreciation to the Almighty would be appropriate.

There is a limerick, Next time you pass the parish church. Please pay a little visit, So when at last you’re carried in, The Lord won’t ask who is it?   

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.

 Most village residents cherish their parish church, seen as so quintessentially English (so long as they are not required to attend), and we should indicate to them the danger if it is to close; pointing out churches have been closed only to re-open as a place of entertainment or a mosque. (then you would see a protest)

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, but they reported new life and new people.

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.

May God Bless you and bring you close to Christ. 

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I have been blessed by having people from many nations reading these weekly posts, sharing the gospel as brothers and sisters in Christ. From my starting 8 years ago, the response has been very encouraging, but especially from the United States. Yet I have never known from where exactly, and it would give me much pleasure to know where you are when you read this, just the Country State, town or city.

  
Every blessing, Eric