Sunday Sermon and Gospel - April 12, 2026

After joining us for some background conversation on the gospel reading, listen to Pastor Katie's sermon. This week the sermon took everything in the podcast as foundational ideas, then explored the ways that being in relationship with Christ is what it is to hear and be transformed by the Word of God. This intimate relationship with the Word is what Thomas was seeking, and we can learn to seek to really hear the Word of God from him. 

Learn more about St. John Lutheran Church at stjohnchurchmars.org or follow us on Facebook.

Scripture quotations from the COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. © Copyright 2011 COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

The Holy Gospel according to John. When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fears of the Jews that would persecute them. Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. But Thomas, who was called the twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, We have seen the Lord. But he said to them, Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe. A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you. Then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it at my side. Do not be disbelieving, but believe. Thomas answered him, My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe. Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. The gospel of the Lord. Would you please pray with me? Good and gracious God, we pray that you breathe your spirit into and among us, that we don't just hear words with our ears, but hear in our hearts the message you have for us this day. Amen. So, as you might have noticed from my splashing in the waters earlier, uh traditionally, Easter, we forego the confession and forgiveness, and we do a Thanksgiving for baptism during the Easter season. So that's going to be happening every week. And if you would like to come and be splashed and remember your baptism, the splash zone is about here. You are welcome to come forward. But we do this partially because of the joy of baptism and the joy of Easter, partially because Easter is a season of resurrection, and in our baptism, we die with Jesus and we are brought to resurrection with Jesus. And we also do it partially because, really traditionally, like older than this church traditionally, uh, people would get baptized at the Easter Vigil service. So they would spend all of Lent preparing for baptism. They would come to the Easter Vigil service, and they, with Christ, would die to their sins and rise to new life in baptism. So then all of Easter becomes a season of baptism, a season of celebrating this new life, this new baptism we have. And baptism is a beautiful and wonderful gift, but it is also more than just a gift. Baptism is a promise. Baptism is a promise that God makes for us, that we will be brought into new life now and in the everlasting. And there are also promises that we make at our baptism. If you are an adult, you make them for yourself. If you are a child, someone makes it on your behalf. And then later on, typically in our tradition, when you get confirmed, you are invited to take on those promises for yourself. Now, if you don't have those memorized, they might sound familiar. I snuck them into our Thanksgiving for baptism to remind you all of them, but it goes a little something like this. We are called to live among God's faithful people, to hear the word of God and share in the Lord's Supper, to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, to serve all people following the example of Jesus, and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth. Now, some of these promises seem a little big and overwhelming, like strive for justice and peace in not just Mars, but all the earth. And some of them seem a little simple, like hear the word of God. Because I I remember when I was younger, hear the word of God. Well, we just heard three different readings from Scripture. I've got snuck in throughout the liturgy a bunch of other little verses of scripture. So check, done, did it? Maybe not. Maybe just like the promises and life and gift of baptism, there's a little more to unpack here. Because to hear the word of God is not just to listen to the sounds of the words of scripture. You're great. I love hearing the water because water is life-giving. Drink up. Hearing the word of God is more than just hearing the individual sounds of the words of Scripture as our mouth forms those words. Hearing the word of God is about encountering, engaging, and experiencing the word of God. Now we're gonna test your Bible knowledge just a little bit. We are in John chapter 20. Who remembers the very first verse of John? Say it. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, and then John talks in circular language about God and Word for a little bit. But then the Word became enfleshed, became incarnate in the person. Someone said it. So perhaps, dear Thomas, who always gets the bad reputation of doubting Thomas, listen to the podcast for my vibes on that one, but maybe Thomas has something to teach us about what it looks like in our baptismal promises to hear the word of God, to encounter, engage, and experience the word of God. For Thomas seeks to follow Jesus. If you remember way back in Lent, they were gonna go to Bethany, and Thomas said, Well, let's go with you, Jesus, so that we can die with you. And then in the final discourse, which we didn't get the chance to read, we'll hear it later. Thomas speaks again. Jesus says, I am going to my father's house, and Thomas jumps up, but I want to go with you, but I don't know where you're going. Teach me the way. And so Thomas, over and over again, seeks to dive into this relationship with Jesus, seeks to experience, engage, and encounter Jesus at every step of the way. He seeks to have that relationship with the word of God, to hear it and to be transformed by it. And that relationship with Jesus, that relationship with the word of God, for the Gospel of John, that is what it is to believe, to be in relationship with Jesus Christ, the Word of God incarnate. And so as the disciples hit that moment, when they watch Jesus die a horrific death, when they watch his body get laid in the tomb, as they lock the doors for fear of those who would persecute them, the disciples perhaps leave that relationship behind. They leave the trust of that relationship behind. And that's where we get Jesus stepping into the room to Thomas, saying, Do not be disbelieving, depending on your translation, do not doubt, but believe. Do not step outside that relationship, but come back into that relationship. And Thomas knew, Thomas knew he needed that relationship because when he heard that all the other disciples, all the other apostles got a chance to experience, engage, and encounter the Word of God in Jesus Christ, what does Thomas do? Thomas says, I want that experience too. I know that I need that experience and I want that for myself. And so Jesus meets Thomas where he is and says, See, here I am. Come and be in an intimate relationship with me in this space. And let's not forget, this space is less than 24 hours after the resurrection, which means this space, I guess Thomas is a week later, but you know what I'm saying. We're close to the resurrection, which means this space is also when those wounds on his hands are still healing. Even weak old scars are still raw. So even in the midst of pain and suffering, even when life is marked by loss and uncertainty and even death, even when this idea of resurrected life is hard to accept, hard to internalize, and hard to apply to our lives, Jesus steps in and invites us and says, Come and experience, come and engage, come and encounter the word of God, hear the word of God for you. Peace be with you. So the Father has sent me, so I send you. You are beloved, says the Word of God. And so we like Thomas can seek out the word of God. We can seek it out to not just hear the sounds mouths make when they hear when they speak the words on the page, but we can seek it out to experience it, to engage it, to be transformed by the word of God, to be invited into that relationship, that space of belief. And we, like Thomas, can learn, our trust can grow, and we can be transformed. Because, like for Thomas, like for all the disciples, our worst days do not define us. Our stories are not defined by failure, guilt, shame, or regret. What defines us is the word of God, the word of God that meets us in these waters, the word of God that feeds us at this table. For in the word of God, we like Thomas can experience a resurrection of hope, a resurrection of faith, a resurrection of possibility, a resurrection of life. We can receive this gift of faith, belief, and hope. And then, as we hear the word of God, as we encounter, engage, and experience the word of God and live in relationship with Jesus Christ, God's word incarnate, we like Thomas can declare, not timidly, but with holy gusto, my Lord and my God, and then be sent out. Go out into the world, embodying Jesus' love and truth, living out Jesus' mission in the world to strive for justice and peace in all the earth. But we'll get there in the coming weeks. Amen.