Homily For The First Sunday after Easter 2025

Last Sunday, we celebrated Easter - with our Lord’s conquest over sin and death.  On this first Sunday after Easter, we are reminded of the privileges of our new status, because of what Christ accomplished.  During Eastertide, we have a season of 40 days in which Christ opened the minds of his disciples to more fully understand what his Messiahship accomplished - not just a political kingdom as some had hoped, not just a moral example. Jesus Christ brought victory over death through a necessary sacrifice, a willing sacrifice.  After His resurrection, he expounded what he had taught them all along although their minds were not ready to accept. 

In our Gospel for today, we find the disciples in the same upper room as they were on Maundy Thursday.  Ruled by fear of what the Jews may do to them because of Christ’s resurrection,  they hid behind locked doors. 

To their fear, Jesus commanded, “Peace be unto you”.  When Jesus commands peace, it must be.  The voice that stilled the waves of the sea can command the swells of human fears and anxiety to cease.  When he appeared in their midst, Jesus showed them all that he had a physical body; He was resurrected into a new type of humanity which retained a physical presence that brought assurance.  He showed them the marks of his conquest over death, His hands and feet.  When the reality of his resurrection began to sink in, St. John writes in a bit of an understatement, “They were glad when they saw him.”  Once again, Our Lord repeated his initial greeting - “Peace be unto you” and followed up with a declaration of the power of Christ to commission them to a ministry of reconciliation.  This ministry would require an anointing of power.  Consider this, Our Lord was anointed by the Holy Spirit in His baptism, even though there is a fundamental unity between the persons of the Holy Trinity.  If it was proper for the eternal Son to be anointed, how much more necessary for those who were present in the upper room?  

They needed an extra measure of God’s power to do the work they were being called to do.  As he commissioned them to apostolic mission, he breathed on them the Holy Spirit.  Echoing the words of Genesis 2:7, “The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being” .   Christ was raised on Sunday, the eighth day, and the Spirit is sent forth among the Apostles as an indicator of new creation being initiated through their ministry. Mankind receives the new breath of life appropriate for a new birth.  The prophets foretold such a promise. Ezekiel prophesied:

“‘A new heart I will give you, and a new Spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you, and make you to follow my statutes and to be careful to observe my ordinances.… and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.’ ” (Ezek. 36:26–28)

‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.… and you shall know that I am the Lord.… Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’ ” (Ezek. 37:4–10).

They were commissioned to continue Christ’s work, among His Body, the Church. Remarkable, isn’t it?  That Christ’s presence in this world is known through His Church - that God takes the frailty of men and makes them to be conduits for the expansion of Christ’s reign on earth.  His presence in the world through the Church - through the Apostles and their successors - confronts the world with its sin.  The Church continues the conquest over Satan’s kingdom.  It is here that Jesus declares the dual action of forgiving and retaining.  Only God can forgive sins.  Yet, here, Jesus gives this authority to his disciples. Notice it begins with the declaration of forgiveness.  

First and foremost, the Apostles were to declare that which they had received - forgiveness. It is promised to those who receive Jesus, who welcome His rule in their hearts and lives.  The mission of the Church is to declare God’s love of forgiveness, the offer to those who will receive it.   On the other hand, the Apostles had the power to retain sins.  In a general sense, sins are retained when people refuse to repent and receive Christ, mirroring the teaching earlier in John 3:36 “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”  So, In one sense, retaining of sins is the formalizing of what the unrepentant retain to themselves by refusing to receive the Good News of Christ. 

In our Epistle, we have the general epistle of St. John, who was one of those who were made glad by Our Lord’s appearance, one of those who were breathed on, commissioned, and empowered for mission on behalf of our Resurrected Lord.  

Here, in the Epistle, he declares the conquest of those born of God: they overcome the world. “‘The world’, it seems, is not just the source of temptation and distraction. It is a positive power for evil, resenting the arrival of its own creator to claim his rightful lordship over it.”  Indeed, truly, they overcome because their trust is in the only person who can overcome the world by suffering and death - Jesus Christ.  His power is so great that in his resurrection there is no weapon, no error, no evil nor any other force of the world can defeat.  

The Apostle also notes that Jesus the Christ has conquered by “water and the blood”. So what is John speaking about in the terms “Water and blood”? Calvin and Luther believed that it referred to the Gospel sacraments of baptism and the Holy Eucharist. 

Some of the Church Fathers, like Augustine, believed that this links our Epistle to the crucifixion narrative of John’s Gospel, in which Our Lord was pierced in his side by the spear and blood and water flowed from Jesus’ side.  Another interpretation introduced by Tertullian understands the water to refer to Christ’s baptism where he was declared to be the Son of God and then commissioned and empowered for his public ministry.  The blood then refers to the blood of our Lord’s death in which his work of salvation was completed.  Here, John links the witness of the Spirit to that of the water and thy blood.  The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth - a theme within St. John’s Gospel and his general epistles - it is He, the Spirit, who bears witness to the truth of Christ’s perfect life initiated and commissioned in Our Lord’s baptism and the Spirit tells the truth, as it were, the perfection of Christ’s sacrifice of blood.  According to the Law, no charge could succeed against the accused unless it could be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.  

Truly, in contrast to the false witnesses at the trial of Jesus who attempted to discredit him but their accounts did not agree, these three, true witnesses are in perfect agreement.  

These three, the Spirit, the water and the blood, bear witness to the rightness, the truthfulness of Christ’s work and person.  These three also bear witness in heaven - to the Christian’s right-standing before God through the application of the work of Christ to their needy condition.  Notice that the King James version says that the Father, the Word - a synonym of St. John for Jesus, and the Holy Spirit all bear witness - the three witnesses that are one in the same.  Indeed, the Christian has the three-fold witness in himself or herself through the Holy Spirit, baptism and the eucharist.  The proof of which is the readiness to declare that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.  

To those who believe, St. John concludes our epistle  - “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son.  He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”

Life is in the Son of God -life through his death and resurrection - the theme of Easter season.  This is the record - the truest testimony - that life is in the Son, eternal life.  It is found in no other other as we are reminded in Acts 4:12 - Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.  Truly, it is the “either-or” of the Gospel. Either you have Christ or you do not; it is the choice between eternal life and eternal death.  It is this Good News of Jesus that we are privileged to announce to the world.

So, this morning, we recall the joy of the disciples when they witnessed the Resurrected Christ in the midst of the Upper Room.  We recall their delight in knowing he had conquered death and commissioned them - by giving them the Holy Spirit for the mission of being His body on earth after his Ascension.  They saw Jesus in the flesh - we now know him by faith.  Notice how the Holy Spirit figures prominently in our mission as followers of Jesus.  The Holy Spirit - he - opens the hearts of people to receive the Good News.  He is at work in Christ’s Church.  He is present with us not only to proclaim the Gospel but to strengthen us, comfort us as we are confronted with adversity and suffering because of faith in Christ. The witnesses spoken of in the Epistle are focused on the truth that is in Christ - that he alone is the source of eternal life.  We could also see the mercy of God in reminding us of the three fold witness of heaven even now.  Even as the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are invoked for our great comfort.  

The Trinity has given us a threefold witness - surer than our consciences - that witness of Holy Baptism, Holy Communion and the work of the Holy Spirit to sanctify us.  It is interesting that Martin Luther used to arise every morning from his sleep and declare with his first words of the  day - I am a baptised man. In other words, the blood of Christ for the cleansing of sin has been promised to me by grace and I rely on the love of God expressed.  We are fed with the bread of heaven, we drink in some mystical fashion the sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood. We receive grace though rightly receiving the Eucharist, with faith and repentance.  Manna and drink, as it were, for our pilgrimage through the Wilderness of this world. Pledges, marks, objective evidence of God’s provision for us.  Moreover, we received the witness, the eternal heavenly witness of the Holy Spirit, who works in us to accomplish our sanctification - that is, the change of our gradually becoming more like Jesus in heart and mind.  

All three bear witness in heaven of God’s presence and love - strengthening us to reach out into this world with the hope and peace offered in Christ Jesus our Lord.  These heavenly witnesses should give us confidence to proclaim to the world the power of Jesus Christ to save all who look to him, all who rest in him for salvation.  One baptism for the remission of sins, a feeding at least weekly from the manna and drink of eternal life and moment by moment encouragement from the Holy Spirit to walk in obedience.  These three, for us redeemed sinners, bring us comfort and assurance as we proclaim the Good News of the Risen Christ to the world around us.  Amen.