John 5:39-40  You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about Me, yet you refuse to come to Me to have life.
 

Perhaps you have read books about the Christian life that tout the seven steps toward an effective prayer life or the five attributes of a Christian giver. To be fair, Scriptures often do address practical issues of the Christian life. But such how-to books can give the impression that our walk with God is a series of stepping stones that finally bring us home to the Father. In reality, our walk with God begins with the Father's sending Jesus Christ to us, thereby bringing us home. Out of the living faith He gives us, we respond by searching the ways in which Christ's love and forgiveness apply to our lives.

Jesus addresses just this issue here in John 5. We can diligently study the Scriptures without ever discovering their focal point. To learn "how to" without learning of Jesus and His saving work provides us with a manual for right living without giving us Christ's righteousness. So we are left destitute of the one and only thing that counts: the eternal life He wishes to shower on us.

But the Scriptures testify about Him as they grab us and make us see the futility of our own efforts at godly living. At the moment when we realize all is hopeless, they give us new hope because He suffered and died and rose again for us. So search the Scriptures, for in them is found His eternal life.

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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

Jesus breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” John 20:22 

God, who formed us from the dust of the ground, breathed into our nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 2:7). Jesus now begins a new creation, breathing on his disciples, giving them the breath of life in the Holy Spirit. The word for “spirit” in Greek, pneuma, also means “breath.” As the disciples are now charged with sharing forgiveness, mercy, love and hope for the world, they go out on the strength of their own breath, but in the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. 

Jesus had said earlier to his disciples, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). The Spirit is with us always to guide us in the truth of Jesus and his promise for us. We have this Breath of new life in us, and through the Spirit, we breath this breath of life for the whole world. The last day of Easter is Pentecost, when the Spirit came upon the disciples, and they began to witness to the whole world “God’s deeds of power” (Acts 2:11). That witness is go ing on still in each of us, inspired by the Breath of the wounded Healer
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

You are witnesses of these things. Luke 24:48 

The “things” that the disciples witnessed are Jesus’ life and ministry, death and resurrection. They have witnessed how Jesus came to bring wholeness and healing to humanity, sharing in their wounds and bringing life. They have witnessed how he took up his cross, suffering and dying for the sake of the world. And they have witnessed how he rose again from the dead to make life the final word for us all. 

Even in our own time, we are witnesses of Jesus. We see where humanity is scarred by abuse, injustice and oppression. We see how illness and death inflict our lives and the lives of our loved ones. We see our creation groaning under the strains of what we have done or failed to do. And we see all of humanity caught in the silence and condemnation of it all. Witnessing means we do not stand on the sidelines while this is happening. We witness to the truth of Jesus. We bring his life and promise to bear, sharing in the scars of our world, trusting in the witness of our risen Lord that we, too, shall be raised to life with him.
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,
 

He showed them his hands and his side. John 20:20 

Why does Jesus share his scars with the disciples? His disciples are apparently preoccupied with seeing them. They want to see that the One who was crucified, the One whom they called Lord, is now standing among them, risen from the dead. He bears the scars as a sign of his victory over death and the grave. And he shares them, openly, with his followers. 

Sometimes we are afraid to look at our scars. They tell us about our most painful and tragic moments, and may even be a prelude to our own death. There are scars on our bodies, scars on our psyche, scars on our nation and our world. But all our scars are joined with Jesus because we are one body with him. Bearing our own scars may help others who cannot bear their scars because they see only the pain they represent. But, bearing our scars openly, we share with humanity that sin, suffering, pain and death will not defeat us, for these are all conquered through the One who bears his scars—still in his risen body—with and for us all.
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

As the Father has sent me, so I send you. John 20:21 

The Easter community does not seek to remain in isolation or behind closed doors and walls. If it is faithful, it reaches out—not on its own strength, but on the strength and courage that comes from the crucified Sharing 29 and risen Lord. Jesus, who was himself sent into this world by the Father (John 12:44-45), now sends his disciples out to be ambassadors of his promise for the rest of the world. As such sent ones, they are apostles of his grace. 

In the New Testament, the distinction of ministry is never one of laity and ordained but only old and new (2 Corinthians 3). And the new ministry, sharing the good news of Jesus the Christ, is never simply the responsibility of the ordained but the laity as well. When we gather as a community of faith in worship, the service always ends with a rite of sending: “Go in peace, serve the Lord.” How do we serve? By bringing Christ’s peace to others. The good news is meant to be shared with all the world!
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,
 

Jesus came and stood among them … John 20:19 

When the disciples had met together on the first Easter evening, even though they were in the same room, they were dismembered—separated, lonely and fearful. When Jesus came and stood among them, they were re-membered, brought together as his body, with joy and promise. Jesus’ promising presence is for his followers—past, present and future—our reason for being. Without our Lord, we are nothing—we are lost in our fears and futility. But with him in our midst, we are a community together that celebrates his life and hope. 

We value the community of faith because it is where Jesus is sharing his gifts with us through Word and sacrament and through our brothers and sisters who are gathered together with us. It is not the size of the community that matters, for Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” (Matthew 18:20). It is the joy of sharing Jesus in word, water, meal, liturgy, singing and the conversation of consolation. We should never underestimate it or stand alone. Grace is there for us in this gathering of Christ’s body
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,

Peace be with you. John 20:21, 26 

Sharing peace starts with the One who shares it first with us. Jesus’ Easter greeting to the disciples is a Jewish greeting—shalom alechem, peace be with you! But in sharing it with the disciples with the marks in his hands and side, he underscores just how deep that peace is. We are at peace with God, reconciled, brought home into the promise of love and forgiveness. The first response of the disciples was rejoicing. Sharing the peace with one another and with the world would come later. 

In such sharing, we are conveying to one another what Jesus the Christ first gave to us—the peace with God, the forgiveness of our sins. We do so with a spirit of wholeness in what this sharing represents. We have all been blessed with Jesus’ peace. It is God’s final word for us. And it is too good to keep this good news only to ourselves. That makes the moment of sharing all the more filled with rejoicing.
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Helping people live life with Jesus everyday,