Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
In the 1970s TV series The A-Team, the character Hannibal Smith concludes each episode with a catchphrase: “I love it when a plan comes together.” The resurrection of Jesus on Easter morning shows that God’s plan of salvation for the world — and for you in particular — that plan came together. It was put into action immediately at the fall into sin. Once Adam and Eve had fallen, God met them in the garden and gave them the promise that he would send a deliverer to crush the head of the serpent. After the fall into sin, fear drove Adam and Eve to hide from the Lord God. Fear caused ten of Jesus’s disciples, along with some women, to hide behind locked doors on that very first Easter morning — we’re told, for fear of the Jews. And throughout the Old and New Testament, we see that fear is the natural response of saints and sinners who enter into the presence of the Holy One of Israel. “Woe is me, for I am a sinner, a man of unclean lips, living among people of unclean lips.” When the Holy One of Israel comes, the natural inclination, the reflex of a sinner, is to be afraid.
But then Easter came, and with it, peace between God and sinner was declared, and fear’s reign had ended. On Easter Day, Jesus suddenly appeared and said to them, “Peace be with you.” In other words, the promise of Christmas, Immanuel, was still true. God was still with them — not as a disembodied spirit or as an idea, but as the one and only-begotten Son of God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, who now stood in their midst, miraculously, in bodily form, resurrected bodily form. He said to the one doubting, “Reach here your finger and see my hands, and reach here your hand and put it into my side, and be not unbelieving but believing.” Jesus not only shows the true nature of faith, he creates it by his own words of comfort and of peace. He told Thomas, “Blessed are they who did not see yet believe.” And Saint John the Evangelist wrote at the end of chapter 20: “These have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that believing in him you may have life in his name.” By his death and resurrection, Jesus has given those who believe eternal life and a heavenly home. That’s what he did and how he went about it.
The question then becomes: how in fact does that event, 2,000 plus years ago, get to you here today, in this service, in everyday life? All the benefits of the Gospel are opened up to you through what some church bodies, including Lutherans, call the Office of the Keys. You see, in Matthew 16:19, Jesus promised Peter — and the whole Christian Church on earth — saying, “I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Notice the following: Matthew 16:19 was spoken by Jesus in the future tense. That is, he gave it as a promise. Second, he is giving the church something of great power and responsibility. He is giving the church on earth the power to open the gates of heaven to a particular person, or to close the gates of heaven on those particular people who refuse to acknowledge their sinful state, who refuse to acknowledge their lifestyles of sin, who refuse to receive that which the Lord God gives. You know, it doesn’t make a difference what the sin is. You can be a vicious gossip and not repent and fall under the condemnation of the Office of the Keys. In the text for this morning, the Lord fulfilled the promise of Matthew 16, not only for Peter, but for all the apostles and for the entire Christian Church. He gave to the church the Office of the Keys. As the Lord had given the office of priesthood in the Old Testament, God still works through offices. It’s just in the New Testament, one divinely instituted office in which the pastor — the priest, the father, the reverend, whatever the title you want to apply from the biblical text — God has given a unique authority to that particular office. Remember this from the Small Catechism: What is the Office of the Keys? It is that special authority which Christ has given to his church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, and to withhold forgiveness from those as long as they do not repent. And where is this written? This is what Saint John the Evangelist writes in chapter 20: the Lord Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” And what do you believe according to these words? I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by his divine command in particular, when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us himself.
There’s this notion that, well, Jesus hung around the worst of the worst — which is true — but he didn’t exempt them from repentance. What did he tell the woman caught in adultery? “Go, and from now on sin no more.” She finally offered a confession. He forgave her and sent her on her way. Who didn’t get forgiveness of sins in Christ? The Pharisees and Sadducees, the priests and the Levites, and all of those self-righteous people who didn’t think their lives required repentance. Those are the ones that don’t get forgiven. All else who confess their sins, generally or specifically, receive the forgiveness of them. In Matthew 16, Jesus promised all Christians that faithful pastors have the authority to forgive the sins of those who confess their sins and trust in Christ alone for salvation. Forgiving those sins in accordance with God’s Word opens up the gates of heaven to the one who repents. Conversely, pastors are also told to withhold forgiveness from those who do not repent, who don’t acknowledge their sinful state and don’t live according to the call of repentance as given in the Bible, in the Word of God.
Now the idea, let alone the doctrine, that Jesus instituted an office through which the gates of heaven are either opened or closed depending on confessing one’s sin and having them absolved by a sinner — but no less a fellow sinner in a churchly office in an odd shirt — meets with a great deal of disbelief, utter disbelief these days. “I don’t need somebody between me and Jesus. I know what’s right for me.” Well, if we all knew what was right for us, Christ wouldn’t have come in the first place. “I don’t need somebody to tell me my sins are forgiven. I just kind of know.” Well, if that’s the case, then why did Jesus actually give the Office of the Keys to pastors? Why did he actually say, “I’m giving to you the keys to open heaven and to close heaven, by repentance or on repentance”? Here in Matthew 16:19 and in John 20:23, Jesus instituted a system for dealing with confessed sins and created an office in the church whose principal duty is to remit sins. That’s what the pastor’s fundamental, most basic job is: to forgive sins according to the Law and Gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s his job — to be the doorkeeper, the gate opener for those who confess and who receive absolution. As many Christians are taken aback when they hear folks like me talk about the Office of the Keys, they’re fundamentally shocked because they don’t know what the Bible teaches or how to read it. And they ignore completely, from Genesis to the Book of Revelation, how God provides confidence and assurance. Listen — that’s what he’s doing. He’s giving you confidence and assurance that in fact your sins are forgiven. When you confess your sins, God is faithful and just to forgive your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness — namely, through the mouth of the pastor. That’s what the office is for. Just as in civil law, in criminal law, in the state realm, the judge is the mouth of the law. He’s the mouth of the verdict. He’s the mouth of the punishment. He opens or closes jail cells to you. A great many Christians are taken aback when they hear about this office of the ministry, but it’s in the Bible, clearly, from beginning to end. And it’s also been in the historic liturgies of the church — not just the Lutheran Church and not just the Roman Catholic Church. Every congregation sort of in the mainline Protestant denominations has a view of the office of pastor as the one who speaks God’s Word and tells the people their sins are forgiven according to the written Word of God. You hear it in the general confession said each and every Sunday morning, because it’s a Divine Service, the Service of Holy Communion. It’s there. The pastor absolves you when he says, “In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins.” Another example: found in the order of the confessional service, which we use each and every Ash Wednesday. After you’ve confessed, repented, and promised to fight against sin with the help of the Holy Spirit — that’s four questions you’re asked in that service — then the pastor says, “Finally, do you believe that through me, a called and ordained servant of God, you will receive the forgiveness of all of your sins?” Then declare so by saying, “I do believe.” Then the pastor says, “As you believe, even so may it be unto you,” and then he speaks the words of absolution to you. Forgiving and retaining sins in the place of Christ is what the priestly office does. By setting up a New Testament office solely dedicated to the forgiveness of sins that Christ earned on the cross for you, that’s Jesus’s way of making sure that you are completely confident that God has spoken his word of forgiveness to you. It’s not merely an idea or an emotion that comes in your heart or in your mind. It’s something that’s spoken externally.
By creating the Office of the Keys, Jesus is making sure that the plan of salvation comes together for you: in the pew, at the rail, in the baptismal font. Lutherans are very big, and rightfully so, on the Word of God being an external word. That means it comes from outside of you. In the normal way of doing things, that means it comes out of the mouth of a pastor and it goes into the ear of the worshiper. The Word of God is external. Or when you’re reading the Bible, the words on the page are coming to you from outside of you, into you. If you’re blind, it’s through Braille. If you’re deaf, it’s through sign language. It comes from outside of you, thus providing reality. In the same way, Jesus comes to them on Easter morning physically present, really present — the resurrected one. If a person trusts in Christ and believes that the pastor stands in the stead of Christ, performing his high priestly duties according to the Word of God, then the repentant can be confident that his or her sins are forgiven — or as God says, they are as far as the east is from the west. “I remember them no more.” Once confessed and once absolved, never to be visited again. But we’re sinners, and we visit them a lot.
But when the pastor speaks this, it’s just as valid and certain even in heaven as if Christ our dear Lord had spoken them to us himself, because they’re standing in the stead of Christ himself, put there by Christ himself. And it’s the first order of business on Easter morning when Jesus appeared behind locked doors. The good news had reached the disciples by way of the women: he has risen from the dead, just as he said. But the disciples were still in hiding, and they were uncertain about what had really happened. Were the women just overly exuberant, or did something really significant happen? They didn’t know, and they didn’t know what it meant. But they had a deeper problem. You see, they had said they did not understand or believe what Jesus had taught for three and a half years to them — namely, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified, and on the third day rise again. On Good Friday, they all forsook or denied Christ, to one extent or another, in one way or another. They didn’t believe the women’s report on Easter morning. Thus sin produced fear, and sin produced shame. So they hid themselves away for fear of the Jews. Then he simply appeared behind locked doors, and the first thing he does is he forgives their sins and declares that all is well between him and them. “Peace be with you,” he says. It’s not an empty greeting. It’s an absolution. It’s a declaration that the hostility between God and the sinner — them — is over. The peace that Christ gives is a very specific kind of peace. The peace that Jesus brings is the same kind of peace that the angels announced Christmas night. It’s the same peace that Paul wrote about when he said, “the peace that surpasses all understanding.” It’s the peace of the forgiveness of sins, that God holds no grudge or judgment against you. It is the peace that comes from the forgiveness of sins, which brings about reconciliation: God and sinner reconciled.
He shows them his hands and he shows them his side, for two reasons. One: he’s real. His real presence now stands among them. And two: this is the price of forgiveness of sin. See my hands. See my side. See, it’s I who died for your sins. Then Jesus says it a second time. He says, “Peace be with you.” But this time he adds, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” In the first greeting, he granted them forgiveness personally, as their brother. In the second greeting, he ties it to the sending of the office of ministry, the Office of the Keys. “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” This is where Jesus, our great High Priest, the mediator between God and man, attaches his priesthood to the commissioning of the first generation of the New Testament pastors. In other words, he speaks peace and forgiveness from his office — the Office of the Keys, the office of priest. Here Jesus authorizes the disciples to carry out the mission of the church. Jesus strengthens their faith and understanding by first absolving them, so they know the peace that surpasses all understanding — the peace that they are now to distribute through the Office of the Keys, that is, the opening and the closing of the doors of the kingdom of heaven. Having said this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” When the disciples saw the wounds and heard the word of peace from the mouth of Jesus, they had no more fear. The Bible says they rejoiced. They had just been absolved by the one who had a right to condemn them for their cowardice, their lack of understanding, and their ignorance. They had just been absolved from the lips of the one against whom they had sinned. He released them from their guilt and shame.
Jesus was sent by his heavenly Father into the world to suffer, to die, to rise again, thereby obtaining the forgiveness of sins for all people. God the Father sent his Son to give his life away for us. And now Jesus sends the first New Testament pastors to do the very same thing. He gave the church the keys to lock and unlock the gates of heaven by virtue of the recipient’s repentance, which is faith, or unrepentance, which is unbelief. Pastors cannot and are not to use the keys in any fashion they please. Pastors cannot do what they want with the keys. They’re authorized only to do what the Bible tells them to do — no more and no less. Here the Scripture tells us precisely how sins are to be forgiven and retained: by faithful pastors who use the public Office of the Keys based on the teachings of the Bible itself. Christ Jesus has given both his authority and his command for pastors to give away his life, his death, his resurrection. And by that we mean he’s given them the authority and the duty to preach the Law and the Gospel, to baptize young and old alike, to distribute the body and blood of Jesus Christ to repentant sinners, and to give and speak his holy absolution to those who confess and repent of their sins. There’s not a pastor in the church, myself included, who is exempt from carrying out this command, though many have forsaken it these days. Pastors, this one included, must give away the forgiveness of sins given in Christ, for that is exactly why it’s called a divine command and a holy ministry.
This is why Jesus called me to be the pastor here, 30 plus years ago. I’m bound by the Word of God to give Christ away, to forgive the sins of those who repent — even if in the moment I’m perplexed by it. What sins should we confess? The Small Catechism is clear on this one too. Before God we should plead guilty of all sins, even those of which we are unaware, as we do in the Lord’s Prayer. But before the pastor we should confess only those which we know and feel in our hearts. In the office of pastor, God has provided the ears of Christ to hear your confessions and the mouth of Christ to speak your holy absolution, your peace, your forgiveness, and Christ’s love toward you. When you confess your sins to a faithful pastor in Christ’s Church, his ears are to be tombs. What goes in never comes out. What goes in: your sin. What comes out: the absolution of Jesus Christ for the remission of all your sins. So your sins are forgiven. Depart in peace. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.