Quasimodo Geniti Sunday (Easter 2)| John 20:19-31| Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| April 12, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
45 <\/sup><\/strong>\u201cWho then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 <\/sup><\/strong>Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Matthew 24:45-46<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When Jesus appeared to His disciples alive from the dead on that first Easter Sunday, showing them His pierced hands and side, marks He received just three days prior while on the cross, He succinctly declared the purpose of His suffering, death, and resurrection. \u201cPeace be with you.\u201d This is the message of Jesus\u2019 resurrection: Peace from God to you. This is why Jesus willingly went to the cross and suffered. This is the meaning of His resurrection. His resurrection is not just another miracle. Jesus\u2019 resurrection means that God is at peace with us sinners. Jesus suffered and died for our sins. Our sin is what made us God\u2019s enemies. Yet, Jesus\u2019 death is payment for our sins, and His resurrection reconciles us to God, that is, it turns us from being God\u2019s enemies into being God\u2019s friends. St. Paul articulates this well in Romans 5, \u201cbut God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.\u201d (vss. 8-10) This is why St. Paul says earlier in this same chapter, \u201cTherefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.\u201d (Romans 5:1)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christ Jesus won peace with God for everyone, because He bore the sins of all people. However, only those who have faith receive this peace. This is why St. Paul writes that we have peace with God when we have been justified by faith. Faith receives the forgiveness of sins Christ won for us on the cross. This is why, after Jesus declared the peace of His resurrection to His disciples, He then said, \u201cAs the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.\u201d And then He breathed on them and said, \u201cReceive the Holy Spirit, if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.\u201d (John 20:21-23)<\/p>\n\n\n\n With these words, Jesus instituted the Office of the Ministry, that is, the office of pastor. Just as Jesus instituted Baptism and the Lord\u2019s Supper, so Jesus instituted the Office of the Ministry. Jesus\u2019 purpose for instituting this office is so that His ministers would give God\u2019s peace, which Jesus won by His death and resurrection to poor sinners, and that poor sinners would receive this peace through faith. As the Father sent Jesus, even so Jesus sends His ministers. And as Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit to preach good news to the poor (Isaiah 61:1), so Jesus gives the same Holy Spirit to His ministers to proclaim the same good news. As the Holy Spirit works through Baptism to wash away sins and cause new birth, and as the Holy Spirit works through the Sacrament of the Altar, to forgive the sins and strengthen the faith of those who faithfully eat Christ\u2019s body and blood, so the Holy Spirit works through the preaching of Christ\u2019s ministers to create faith, bind up the broken hearted, forgive sins, and comfort the faithful with peace which surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7). As Jesus spoke to His disciples in Luke 10, \u201cThe one who hears you, hears Me.\u201d So, the peace Jesus spoke to His disciples is then spoken to others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, Jesus\u2019 apostles were called directly by Jesus. This means that no human institution approved of them, no church council voted to elect them, no assembly of pastors laid their hands on them. When St. Paul was called to be an apostle by Jesus, he did not consult with the other apostles to approve of his apostleship (Galatians 1:16), though the apostles did later extend the right hand of fellowship to him (Galatians 2:9). He didn\u2019t need to consult them, because Christ Jesus Himself called Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, today, pastors are not called directly by Jesus. They are called by Jesus indirectly through the Church. In Acts 14:23 it says, \u201cAnd when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.\u201d That word for appointed can also mean elected. Elders are what we today call pastors or ministers. The apostles worked with the Christian congregations that had formed to choose men fit to serve as ministers in these congregations, and then the council of elders laid their hands in prayer upon the new minister (1 Timothy 4:14). Still today, this is how God gives ministers to His Church to give them their spiritual food at the proper time. No one should be accepted as a minister of God who is not called through the Church. No one can make himself a pastor. The Church must call them. These ministers, although they are called indirectly through the Church, are still called by Jesus Himself and they carry the same authority to forgive sins and care for souls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Acts chapter 20, St. Paul instructed the elders of the church of Ephesus, saying, \u201cPay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the Church of God, which He obtained with His own blood.\u201d So, you see, although these elders were called indirectly through the Church and had not seen the risen Christ, Paul still states that the Holy Spirit had made them overseers. And so, even today, pastors are made by God, not by men. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet, Christ gives His Church the authority to call pastors. St. Paul says in Ephesians that God put all things under Jesus\u2019 feet \u201cand gave Him as head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.\u201d (1:22-23) And Jesus says in Matthew 18, \u201cTruly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it shall be done for them by My Father in heaven. For wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.\u201d (vss. 18-20) This is why our Catechism says that the Office of the Keys is that special authority which Christ has given to His Church<\/em> on earth, to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant, as long as they do not repent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christ has given all things to His Church. Baptism belongs to the Church. The Lord\u2019s Supper belongs to the Church. The Gospel belongs to the Church. The Church is the congregation of believers, the sheep who hear the voice of their Good Shepherd. The Church is the household of God. Pastors are servants whom God has placed over His household to give them their food <\/em>at the proper time (Matthew 24:45). The Gospel is your food<\/em>. The forgiveness of sins is your meat and drink.<\/em> The preaching of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments is the pasture to which the Good Shepherd commands His under-shepherds to bring His flock to feed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, it is not that God gave the forgiveness of sins, Baptism, the preaching of the Gospel, and the Sacrament of the Altar to a select class of priests to decide who can and cannot receive these things. Rather, God has given all these things to His Church, and He has instituted the Office of the Ministry to make sure that His sheep are fed and that God\u2019s peace is proclaimed to the world. Yet, Christ\u2019s ministers are not simply waiters at a restaurant, who take orders and give the diners whatever they ask for. Rather, Christ has made them overseers, stewards of His mysteries (1 Corinthians 4:1). They are to do as Christ directs them. The Church is built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Christ Jesus the cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20), and so ministers are bound by the Holy Scriptures and the commands of Christ. Christ directs them to forgive the sins of the repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now these words from John 20 mean that pastors indeed have the authority to forgive sins and to withhold forgiveness (vss 22-23). This means that when you confess your sins to your pastor, whether publicly in the Divine Service or privately in private confession and absolution, that the words of forgiveness spoken by your pastor are the words of Christ Jesus from heaven. You should be certain of your forgiveness. Yet, it also means that when the minister excludes openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation, that the sins of the unrepentant are bound to them. Confession and Absolution is a source of great comfort to troubled consciences, and it is clearly taught in John 20 and Matthew chapters 16 and 18. Those who deny that a pastor has authority to forgive sins deny the clear words of Jesus in Scripture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, these words are also the basis of the entire ministry of the Church. The forgiveness the pastor declares in the absolution is the same forgiveness of Christ found in Baptism, in the Lord\u2019s Supper, and in every Gospel sermon, because there is no forgiveness of sins except through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus. Those who say that you do not need to go to a pastor to receive forgiveness of sins, because you can go straight to Jesus ignore the clear words of Jesus. Jesus tells you to go to your pastor. And He commands your pastor to baptize, to preach the Gospel, to absolve sinners, to administer the Lord\u2019s Supper. This is how Christ gives you today the same peace He proclaimed to His Apostles on the day of His resurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, Jesus also gives His ministers the authority to withhold forgiveness. Ministers should withhold forgiveness from those who continue in sin without repenting and from those who refuse to believe the Gospel. The reason sinners continue in sin without repenting, is because they do not believe the Gospel. Unbelief is the root problem. Only unbelievers are barred from receiving Jesus\u2019 forgiveness and God\u2019s peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thomas was an unbeliever. He doubted that Jesus rose from the dead. And so, he did not receive God\u2019s peace which the disciples relayed to him. Yet, when Jesus appeared to him as well, and showed him His hands and side, Thomas repented of his unbelief and confessed Jesus as his Lord and God. But Jesus doesn\u2019t show us His pierced hands and side today. Rather, He says, \u201cBlessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.\u201d Yet, how can people believe when they have not seen? The Holy Spirit works through the words of Jesus\u2019 ministers to create faith where and when it pleases God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through the preaching of the Law, pastors convince sinners that they are sinners, who deserve God\u2019s wrath. It seems mean. It seems judgmental. But it is necessary for salvation. Sinners need to hear that they are sinners. You need to know that you have offended God by your pride, lust, greed, and unbelief, that the wages of your sin is eternal death in hell. Only when you are convinced of that can you recognize your need for the peace only Jesus can give. Then through the preaching of the Gospel, the minister convinces guilty sinners that God forgives them for Christ\u2019s sake. Ministers proclaim God\u2019s peace through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. And the Holy Spirit works through this preaching to convert hearts, to convince them, and to save them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And this is not just a once and done thing. We are burdened with our sin and doubts throughout our life. The New Testament mentions many who once believed the Gospel but later went astray (2 Timothy 4:10; 1 Timothy 1:19-20). And so, we who are converted need to continue to repent of our sins and to receive Christ\u2019s forgiveness and peace. We need to again sit down and receive our food at the proper time. This is how we receive the peace Jesus won for us on the cross. Only through faith in Christ can we receive God\u2019s peace. And faith hears the words of Christ (Romans 10:17; John 8:32). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Amen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Quasimodo Geniti Sunday (Easter 2)| John 20:19-31| Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| April 12, 2026 45 \u201cWho then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Matthew 24:45-46 When…<\/p>\n