Out of Hiding

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In the beginning, everything was very good. No sin soiled creation. No sorrow marred the joy of our forebears. Adam and Eve were at peace with God and in perfect harmony with one another. They were good stewards of the bounty of Paradise, and they walked with God in the cool of the day through the Garden. Nothing separated them from the Lord Himself, and He talked with them face to face.

But then sin entered into creation upon the temptation of the serpent. The perfection and harmony were marred by discord and doubt. The eyes of Adam and Eve were not opened, but instead blinded by their new-found sin. In shame, they ran and hid instead of appearing before the Lord God as they had formerly. These newly fallen sinners could not face the Holy One because they were no longer the holy creatures He had created in His image.

So Adam and Eve hid from the Lord, but He who sees all, even that done in secret, found them and called them to show themselves. Not just their physical nakedness, but their doubt, unbelief, and shame were called into the light of God's strict judgment. In the face of the Judge, they were condemned by their own actions and cast out of the Garden. However, they were sent away with the promise of a Messiah who would come to them and make all things new, who would save them from their sins and restore them to peace with God once more. Eventually, He would come to save them and free them from the bondage to sin.

Again in today's Gospel lesson, we encounter the disciples locked away in the upper room. The two to whom Jesus had appeared on the road to Emmaus had just returned and “they told what had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of the bread.” What a conversation that must have been – and how foolish the two must have felt!

But then it gets even more strange. “As they were talking about these things, Jesus Himself stood among them, and said to them, 'Peace be to you.' But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit.” The One who had appeared to the two disciples in Emmaus at the breaking of the bread was now in the midst of all of them, without coming through the door, which was locked fast. He spoke, and they were even more frightened, because they thought He was a ghost.

But Jesus knew their fear, and calmed them with His words and by showing His wounds as proof. “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Touch Me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Jesus is no ghost, no apparition, no spook who goes bump in the night. Jesus has hands and feet, He has flesh and blood and bones, He has a voice and an appetite. When He asked for food, they fed Him some fish, and He ate it. Jesus is really there, in the flesh, for them to hear and touch and see and smell.

The disciples spent a lot of time in the first weeks after Good Friday locked up in the house where they were staying. They hid from the world, from the prying eyes and whispered comments of those who had looked for a savior, only to see Him crucified and then vanished. But more than that, they hid from God and instead turned inward. How can this be? How can the Lord of glory have been killed by sinful men, placed into a tomb, and then these people are telling us that He is gone? That He has appeared to them in Emmaus?

The temptation must have been great to cast their eyes down from the cross and look inward for answers. Jesus had many times predicted what would happen to Him, and how He would again rise from death. And yet they did not believe. So, doubting His Word, they engaged in what Luther might call spiritual navel-gazing. They sought answers inside themselves, while hiding from the fact that they were failing to believe in the Word which the Lord had proclaimed to them so many times while He was with them.

But then, that evening, while they were together, Jesus invaded their dark, dreary corner of Jerusalem. He appeared to them in the midst of their locked, shuttered conclave. Even when they were hiding from Him in their doubt, dismay, and disbelief, He broke into their limited reality and pulled their eyes up, off themselves, and onto Him who is living. No more navel-gazing allowed in the presence of Jesus.

Jesus will not allow any doubt about Himself. He who once was slain has burst His three-day prison, and He has risen from the dead altogether in flesh and blood, body, mind and spirit. To those who doubt, He presents Himself as proof that the Word of God is true. See, hear, touch, smell, and taste that the Lord is good, that the Lamb is living.

Just like in the Garden, God comes to His people and finds them, no matter how secret, how deep and dark the corner in which they hide. The God who sees in secret finds His people and calls them out of hiding, out of darkness, into the Light. However, unlike with Adam and Eve, Jesus does not call the disciples out in order to expose their sin and to condemn them for their unbelief. Rather, He calls to them with peace. He calls them to believe that He really has died and is risen for them, for the forgiveness of their sins. Death is defeated because Life has triumphed. The Messiah so long ago promised to Adam and Eve has come, and has done just as He promised He would.

In the Lord's Prayer, you pray, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” In this petition you pray that God would not His face from you or deny your prayers on account of your sin. You must come out of your hiding-place and confess your sins to God your Father, who is rich in grace to forgive. On account of the sacrifice of His beloved Son on the cross for you, He indeed does not look upon your sins, hide His face from you, or deny your prayers on account of your sins.

You may try to hide from God, but He will not hide Himself from you. Even in the hour of darkest woe, in the darkest corner and the deepest shadow of death and despair, He comes to you. He invades your reality and banishes the darkness by His all-consuming light and grace. He has died for you and is risen for you. He breaks the bonds of sin, death, and hell for you. His death on the cross is now your death. His life in the flesh is your life forever. Because He is risen – body, soul, and spirit – you will also rise with Him in the body.

Long ago, the Lord God promised to Adam and Eve that He would send a Messiah to be born in the flesh of man, who would save all men from sin and death. In the fullness of time, He sent His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to be that Messiah. He has come into the flesh to bear your sin and be your savior. He has died that you might live. He has risen, that you might rise with Him to glory everlasting. And He makes all things new.

Jesus shines His light into your hiding place and obliterates your darkness. He drowns your old sinful nature and raises you to new life and immortality. He scatters the remains of the old Eden, and opens the gates to the new Paradise. He has prepared for you a place in the heavenly City of God, and He has breathed on you His Holy Spirit, who prepares you to enter the holy City. You no longer hide from God, but see Him. You see and smell and taste His Body and Blood on His holy Altar. You hear Him speaking His Word to you and place His forgiving hand upon you in the blessed Absolution. All the ceremonies of your worship serve as ways that God shows Himself to you, not just as a ghost or an apparition, but in the flesh, as real and true. God has brought you into the Garden once more, and He walks and talks with you again. Come out of hiding and into His glorious light. “In Your light do we see light” (Psalm 36:9).

True God, He first

From death has burst

Forth into life, all subduing.

His enemy

Doth vanquished lie;

His death has been death's undoing.

“And yours shall be

Like victory

O'er death and grave,”

Saith He, who gave

His life for us, life renewing (LSB 483.2).

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

Christ is Risen! Alleluia!