Homily For The First Sunday After Easter 2026
During this season, we meditate on what the resurrection of Christ impacts and how it changes the way in which the Christian moves in this world. Christ has conquered our greatest enemies, the greatest of them being death, and we have an entire season in which we enter into festive contemplation of the power of the resurrection. We have the great forty days of Christ’s exposition to his disciples of how the Scriptures, all of the hopes of the Patriarchs and Prophets point to Him. I never grow weary of marveling at what that bible study series must have been like. Can you imagine what was taught to the disciples? How they were fortified in their faith in the resurrection by hearing that Jesus is the hinge of all history, that they have been witnesses of the greatest events in human history.
For 40 days before his Ascension, the disciples experienced the joy of the presence of the conquering Christ - whose real presence transformed them. There are the Great 40 days - a stark contrast to the solemn, almost bleak 40 days of Lent.
Our Gospel for this morning is from John Chapter 20. This reading takes place on the evening of Easter Sunday - being the first day of the week - before Jesus’ appearing to them. They were not gathered in celebration of Christ’s conquest of death, they were not assembled to discuss the power of Christ and his fulfillment of all that he said about his betrayal, crucifixion and resurrection on the third day. Instead, they were behind closed doors almost anticipating Christ’s opponents to burst in and take them captive. Fear governed their assembly; It has been said that most of the things that we fear never come about. That we waste so much of our time anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop.
In any case, Our Lord decided to break into the gloom, confusion and anxiety – he didn’t need to enter by the door. He simply appeared in the middle of their group. They anticipated persecution and destruction - Our Lord speaks peace to their vexed souls. We may speak peace, we may give words of encouragement but Jesus' words powerfully accomplish His purposes.
Here we see the merging of words and physical manifestations of truth in the showing of Christ’s hands and feet. The Lord proves that he has a different resurrected body - he can appear in their midst randomly - but it is the same body that suffered on the cross - that bore the marks of his redemptive love for his people. Evidence that he could declare definitively the peace of God toward them. It is little wonder that the disciples were glad. Indeed, their joy is a fulfillment of a promise made to them in the Upper Room on Maundy Thursday.
Remember how Jesus told them in John 16:22 - 22 And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. It is interesting that Jesus puts it this way: his seeing the disciples again and not the disciples seeing him again. There is a palpable physicality about this reunion: Disciples will not only see a physically resurrected Jesus (20:19–29), but Jesus, the physical person himself, will actually lay eyes on his bereaved but now overjoyed disciples. This is surely the world’s single most significant and ecstatic reunion ever: the death-defeating Lord Messiah and his almost incredulous disciples that Sunday evening.”
As he spoke peace and showed them the surest evidence of his power to declare it, Our Lord, here, breathed on them and then declared that they receive the Holy Spirit. Empowered by the Holy Spirit they are to have a ministry of the declaration of forgiveness - Christ’s conquest over sin and death.
Much is made of the remitting and retaining of sins. When one receives the Gospel that the Apostle preached, one receives the remission of their sins. When one refuses to believe, the sins are retained because of an unwillingness to receive that which Christ alone offers - forgiveness of sins. Even in church discipline, among the baptized, among the professing Christian, the purpose of excommunication - removing someone from communion, perhaps restraining them from being physically present among God’s people - is that the separation from God’s people will bring about repentance and true reception of Christ’s forgiveness. The heart of the Apostles is to declare Christ’s conquest over sin and death. They will need the Holy Spirit’s power as they enter a new ministry after Christ’s Ascension in which they will be persecuted, they will be abused and killed for the Lord’s name. They needed the peace which passes all understanding, that is able to guard their hearts in Christ Jesus.
The good news for them that Easter evening and for us today is that Christ's presence brings peace; the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ, or the Spirit of God and we have the promise of His indwelling presence to apply those words of peace to our hearts.
Our Epistle for today speaks to our role as the Church in the ages after the Apostles. Whereby we are commanded by St. John to overcome the world by the peace of Christ. The apostles were witnesses of the resurrection. Here, St. John speaks to the witnesses of being in Christ. The means by which a disciple overcomes the world. These three speak peace to the Christian amidst the distracting chaos of an opposing world system. He mentions the blood, the water and the Spirit - objective proofs that ground the Christian in Christ’s peace even as such things confound the world. We need to understand, too, that the world to which John is referring is not the physical world which God has made, rather he is speaking to a worldly system that acts decisively against God.
It resents “the arrival of its own creator to claim his rightful ownership over it…it fights against Christ, it believes it has conquered Christ’s kingdom in Our Lord’s death, but the physical resurrection proves His conquest.
The three witnesses for us are water, which refers to Christ’s baptism in which he was declared from heaven to be the Son of God and was commissioned and empowered to do that work; the blood, which points to the atonement for our sins through Christ’s death, and the Spirit, who is the Holy Spirit, who bears witness to the truth of Christ’s perfect righteousness and his atoning death and resurrection. The Spirit is an internal witness who opens our eyes to see and receive the Gospel; the Spirit is given to the Christian so that he might love the truth of Christ's death and resurrection.
Indeed, “we have two kinds of verifying evidence - objective and subjective, historical and experiential, water and blood, the reality of Christ redemption and the Spirit making this truth an internal reality for the Christian. The Holy Spirit is ‘He it is who seals in our hearts the testimony of the water and the blood’
This Sunday we hear again the words of Jesus - Peace be unto you. We may feel like those huddled disciples, burdened by fears and anxieties of our present circumstances. Yet, Jesus has overcome death and we have the surest hope, for Jesus brings peace to all who will receive him. He is the source of all true blessing. Meditate this week on how Christ’s resurrection, the eternal hope purchased for us through his passion and conquest of death has changed everything.
We do not huddle in fear here in this parish, we gather to celebrate the fact that Christ has overcome the world - that he declares His peace to His people. Meditate on how your baptism - which is a baptism into Christ - washed you and how the Sacrament of His body and blood is the new manna which strengthens you, and how the promise of His indwelling Holy Spirit guides you into all truth and sanctifies you. Let all three speak peace to Your Heart as you walk in joyful obedience to the Risen Lord. Amen.
