As we are looking at the resurrection of Jesus, as it's presented in the scriptures that we saw last week, Mary Magdalene come to the tomb of Jesus. and finding it empty she went and got Peter and John who came back and they also confirmed that that tomb was empty and we saw then Mary encounter the risen Christ and become the first witness of the resurrection. Not only the first to witness it and to see it, but the first to be given a commission by the Lord to be, as it were, an apostle to the apostles, to go and tell them what they had seen and what Jesus said. And in the scriptures today, the passage that we look at, it's still the first day of the week, that day that Jesus has risen, but it's in the evening. And I'll invite you to look at your copy of the scriptures in John chapter 20, verses 19 through 23, and to listen to this, the reading of God's word. On the evening of that first day of the week, When the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. After he said this, he showed them his hands and sighed. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. And again, Jesus said, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And with that he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive any one of his sins, they will be forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. And this is God's word. Pray with me that he'll bless it to our understanding today. Father, your grace to us is great. And Father, you've given it to us not only to be the recipients of that grace, but to be the agents of that grace for others. And yet, Father, that's difficult to do sometimes with the things that we yet suffer in this life. with the griefs with which we are laid down, with the scars which we bear. Father, show us today from your word, confirm to your people by your Holy Spirit, shedding the love of God abroad in their hearts, that those things which we suffer, by no means preclude us from being a part of the new creation that is in the resurrection of Christ. Be with us today and cause us in response to your word to worship you with our minds and hearts, with our lips and our lives to your glory for our good and for Jesus' sake. Amen. I've got a scar on my forearm right here. I won't tell you how I received it. I'll just tell you that when I received it 30 years ago, it was so extraordinarily painful that it brought me to my knees and nearly caused me to pass out. And maybe some of you have similar scars. You know, it's a funny thing. 40 years ago or 30 years ago, the physical pain has got to be gone. And yet when I catch sight of that scar, my arm aches there. It can't be physical. It has to be a memory. And maybe some of you have such scars somewhere on your body, but you know soul scars are even more painful. And there's a growing consensus that when people suffer affliction, great hardship, when they suffer things like the death of a loved one, or they're the victim of some heinous crime, or the victim of a betrayal, or have some catastrophically negative change come into their lives, that all of those things are cumulative in their weight. It seems that grief is a cumulative thing, and it chips away at the soul. But that's for other people, right? Thanks be to God that that's not the experience of Christians. That hardship and sorrow and affliction, it just rolls off our back like water off of a duck's back. That's your experience, right? Last week in Sunday school, we learned about The hymn writer and poet William Cooper, one of the children, told us about this man whose poetry is so beautiful who his whole life suffered great dejection and depression to the point at times of despair. How can that be? Do not the scriptures tell us in 2 Corinthians 5.17 that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come. And that's true. If you're in Christ, you are a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come. How can you bear the scars of life in a fallen world if you're a new creation. And friends, the world is a confusing place. It's far more confusing to those who do not know Christ. And the scriptures tell us what all people really already suspect, that something's wrong. Something's wrong with the world in which we live. But it tells us more than what we suspect. It tells us what's gone wrong. It tells us that humankind has sinned, has fallen short of the glory of God, is under the wrath and curse of God in this creation, is alienated from God. But God has not merely revealed his wrath, but he's revealed his grace in the gospel. And there's good news for you who hurt, who suffer, who bear the scars of living in a fallen world. If you are in Christ and you suffer, the scriptures say that you enter into the sufferings of Christ. Apostle Peter writes, but rejoice in as much as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. So the good news is that Christ entered into your suffering. He died your death for your sins, and he rose, the Apostle tells us in Romans 1, for your justification. And so rejoice in as much as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed." What are the sufferings of Christ? They're not merely limited to those things that you suffer for being a Christian. Oh, everybody will suffer for being a Christian. The scriptures tell us that if anyone wishes to live godly in Christ Jesus, he'll be persecuted. Our brothers and sisters in Somalia know that to an extraordinary degree, but everyone who is in Christ knows something of it. But that's not merely what Peter's speaking of. If you are a Christian, if you are in Christ, anything that you suffer as a part of this fallen creation that comes upon you, that you are a victim of, is a participation in the suffering of Christ. And what I hope you will understand today is that there's no incompatibility between you being a new creation in Christ and still bearing the pain of soul scars. We see here in this appearance to the disciples that the risen Christ bears the scars of the old creation. On the evening of that first day of the week when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. After he said this, he showed them his hands and sighed. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. So this is the evening of the very day that Jesus has risen. And here they were, huddled together, hiding together in this locked room, we're told, for fear of the Jews. The reference there is not to a people of a certain ethnicity, but to the Sanhedrin. the Sanhedrin who had orchestrated the arrest and the execution of Jesus. And it was not unreasonable for them to think that the Sanhedrin might come back to get rid of the movement root and branch. And so here they are huddled together. We're told that it's the disciples Certainly the apostles, the 12, well, not all 12, Judas is gone and Thomas is not present yet. It's at least them. Who else might have been present? Would be hard to say. And they're huddled together here in this room, afraid. Why are they afraid? They knew that Jesus was risen from the dead, didn't they? Mary had gone back and told them that, what she'd seen and what he had said. Or did they? If you look at Luke chapter 24, the two disciples who are fleeing Jerusalem on the way to Emmaus, and they meet the risen Lord and they speak with him, They speak of the things that the women had seen and said, and they said, but it sounded to us as nonsense. And even if they did believe her, nighttime has a way of preying on your mind, doesn't it? Of making your soul scars sore. But all of a sudden, Jesus was standing among them. And friends, let me point out again, as I've pointed out over the past two Sundays, that the resurrection of Jesus is not a returning from the dead. It's the start of a new creation. There's something different about the resurrection of Jesus than the returning of life of Lazarus, the returning to life of the son of the widow from Nain. There's something different about it And that difference is captured by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Colossians. In the first chapter, he says this, Give thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints and the kingdom of light, for he has rescued us from the domain of darkness and has brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn, of all creation. And there's a lot in that phrase, the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. What does it mean to say that Christ is the image of the invisible God? What is an image? An image is something that is visible. It's something that is tangible. And so when the Apostle says that Christ is the image of the invisible God, he's speaking of his incarnation. He's the image of the invisible God. As he'll say elsewhere, in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And then he goes on to say that he's the firstborn of all creation. Not the firstborn over all creation, as your translation may say, the idea of the translators being that he has preeminence over creation. That's certainly true, but it's certainly not what the text says. the firstborn of creation. Not what Arius thought in the fourth century, that the Son of God was not co-equal with the Father, but that he was the first created being, and so he's the firstborn of creation. No, what the apostle is referring to is that he is the image of the invisible God in his incarnation, and he is the firstborn of creation in his resurrection. Christ is the start of the new creation. That creation which was promised at the end of the prophet Isaiah, which we see come to fulfillment in Revelation 21 and 22, Christ is the first installment of it. He is the start of the new creation to which all of redeemed creation will be conformed. And so there's something different about Jesus in his resurrection. And the gospel writers never draw direct attention to it, but it's peculiar. You know, as we read of what Peter and John saw as they entered the tomb, we see the grave clothes there lying on the shelf on the platform where the body was. They don't seem to be disturbed or unwrapped. They're lying there. You get the impression that somehow the body of Jesus had passed through the grave clothes. And yet the face cloth that was put over the deceased was picked up and folded and laid next to it. It seems as we read the gospel accounts that the stone of the tomb was rolled away, not so Jesus could leave. He was gone already. So that we would know that he was gone. And so he seems somehow to have passed through the tomb and here he stands among the disciples in a room with locked doors. Jesus is the firstborn of creation. He's the start of the new creation. And as I look at these resurrection appearances of Jesus, what's different about him than about Lazarus and about the son of the widow at Nain and Perhaps only those of you who do things with electronics and sound will understand what I'm about to say, but Jesus seems, in his resurrection, almost to be out of phase with this creation. Or maybe a better way to say it is that this creation is out of phase with him. And he's solid to the touch, but tombs can't contain him. Locked doors can't keep him out. There's something different about him. So people he's known for three years walk with him and they don't recognize him and then they know him. And now he stands among them and he pronounces peace upon them. It was a standard greeting in the Aramaic. You hear it in Israel today. Shalom aleichem. Peace be with you. But this is no perfunctory pronouncement, no mere greeting. Paul would write in Ephesians 2.14 that he himself is our peace. In Christ, we have peace with God and the foundation for a peace with one another. In John 14, Jesus had said to them, peace I give to you, my peace I leave with you, not as the world gives do I give to you, so let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." And what's significant here is that the risen Christ, who is among them, were told that after he's pronounced peace upon them, he showed them his hands and his side. That's significant because in it there would be a recognition of who he was for those who had seen him crucified before they scattered would see the scars in his hands, And John says significantly in his side, that was an unusual wound. People who were the victims of crucifixion would have scars in their hands and their feet and may have their femurs broken. But of Jesus alone, we're told that the spear was thrust into his side to be sure that he was dead. Now this could be none other than Jesus. But friends, what's significant to note is that the risen Christ, the start of the new creation, a Christ who is glorified, bears the scars that he incurred in the old creation. And that indicates something. It indicates that the scars from the old creation are not incompatible with being the new creation. The text goes on, again, Jesus said, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And with that, he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. Jesus' repeated pronouncement of peace here indicates that this is no perfunctory greeting. It is a benediction of God's peace. And because this is the disciples, at least the ten of them, He begins to prepare them for their task. He says, as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. And if you remember back in John chapter 14, he said, I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these because I'm going to the Father. And I pointed out at that time that it doesn't mean that they will do greater things in power, but greater in scope. That the work that Jesus began would be carried on by his church and that would start in these 10 apostles. As the Father sent me, so I'm sending you. As he has accomplished redemption, they will be the agents of applying that redemption. And he says, if you forgive anyone's sins, they're forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they're not forgiven. Now, Jesus doesn't mean that the apostles will have the authority to forgive sin, for even the enemies of Jesus knew that no one but God has authority to forgive sin. But what they and the church after them bind in the name of Christ on earth will be bound in heaven, and what they loose will be loosed in heaven. That's what Jesus said in Matthew 16. It doesn't mean that God will follow along with whatever pronouncements that they make. That would be an instance of the tail wagging the dog. But rather, and the right way to translate that is whatever will have been bound on earth has been bound in heaven. And that's what Jesus is speaking about here But friends, right in the midst of that, in the middle of that, Jesus says something that's peculiar. Maybe it struck you as odd. With that, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. Has that ever seemed puzzling to you? I remember the first time reading the Gospel of John and thinking, it's a peculiar thing for Jesus to have done. What can that mean? We see in the Gospel of, I'm sorry, in the Book of Acts, the Holy Spirit being poured out at Pentecost. What can this mean, receive the Holy Spirit? Calvin suggested that what's happening here is that Jesus is daubing them with the Holy Spirit and at Pentecost he'll inundate them with the Holy Spirit. Calvin's usually so helpful. What can it mean? D.A. Carson, the great scholar today, biblical scholar, and very insightful, he rather likes the approach of Theodore of Mopsuestia, that this was simply a symbolic promise of the Holy Spirit that would come at Pentecost. The problem with that view is that it was condemned as heretical by the Council of Constantinople in 553. And call me skitterish, but I'm a little loathe of explanations that have been condemned by the whole undivided Church. What can he mean? Critical scholars suggest that John here is simply contradicting the Pentecost account of Acts 2, that John, his gospel being written later, didn't like that they never talked about how the Holy Spirit came, so he invented a way that the Holy Spirit came and put it in here. I guess if I really thought that that's what this book was, I would be doing something else. What does that mean? Jesus breathed on them and he said, receive the Holy Spirit. You know, to me the answer seems so very obvious. Maybe that means there's something wrong with me, I don't know. But it seems so very obvious. Does that picture remind you of anything in scripture? Maybe it stands out to me because the word that's used for breathe here is used only here in the Greek New Testament. It is used nowhere else in the Greek Testament. But in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, it's used six times. And in the majority of those times, it's used of life coming back into dead things. But let me tell you where it's used first. in Genesis chapter 2 and verse 7. And the Lord God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul. The Apostle writes in 1 Corinthians 15, 45, So it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living soul, the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. Jesus is the firstborn of creation. He is the start of the new creation. But he's not only the start of the new creation, he's the creator of the new creation, of the new humanity. And he is the image of the invisible God. He himself, in fact, is the God in whose image he's made. And in him, Paul says in Colossians 3.10, you have put on the new man, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator. The scars that you carry even now of the old creation are not incompatible with your being a new creation in Christ. Jonathan Edwards is often referred to as one of the greatest speculative theologians who's ever lived. And what Edward scholars mean by that is that Edwards had a way of after he looked at what a text of scripture said, he would muse and meditate on it and let his mind run as to what the implications of that may be, what it would mean, what it would look like if we believe those things to be true. And friends, as I meditate on the new heavens and the new earth, and I let my mind wander through what they look like, I suspect, I can't point to a passage of scripture and prove it, but I suspect that the painful scars that I've incurred in this creation will be healed, that I won't bear those scars anymore, and we will be conformed to the likeness of the risen, glorified, new creation Christ, but I have for long suspected that there will be this one difference, that He alone will bear scars. But why? Why does the risen, glorified, new creation Christ bear scars? I wonder if it's to assure you that the soul scars that you bear and feel now, that come from living in a fallen world, in no way keep you from being a new creation in Christ. I wonder if it's to convince you that the cumulative hurt and pain, the times of sadness and even the despair that overwhelms you does not keep you from being a new creation in Christ. I wonder if it's to reassure you that being a new creation in Christ does not mean that happiness will always pervade your life and the weight of this world will just roll off your back like water off of a duck's. In 1946, a man by the name of Edward Shalito wrote a poem. He wrote that poem because the horrors of what had happened in the Second World War that were kept from many people during the time of that war were coming to light. And it's a poem I'd like to leave you with today and leave particularly with those of you who are trusting Christ but are hurting and who are bearing the weight of soul scars. The title of the poem is Jesus of the Scars. If we have never sought, we seek thee now. Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars. We must have sight of thorn pricks on thy brow. We must have thee, O Jesus of the scars. The heavens frighten us, they are too calm. in all the universe we have no place. Our wounds are hurting us. Where is thy balm? Lord Jesus, by thy scars we claim thy grace. If, when the doors are shut, thou draw us near, only reveal those hands that side of thine. We know today what wounds are. and have no fear, show us thy scars, we know the countersign. The other gods were strong, but thou wast weak. They rode, but thou didst stumble to a throne. But to our wounds only God's wounds can speak, for no god has wounds but thou alone. Would you pray with me? Father, look with mercy upon your people. Lord, your people gathered here in this little flock are hurting. Father, there's been so much hardship and so much heartache. And Lord, not only here, but around the world as we see the increase of the persecution of our brothers and sisters in places like Somalia and Syria, like Iran and Iraq, like Nigeria and Sudan. Father, we thank you for the scars that our Savior not only bore but yet bears to convince us in those things which we bear living in this fallen world are by no means evidence that we are not a part of the new creation. which he brought and which he is in his resurrection. By your grace, O God, we cling to him, and in him claim your promises. Amen.