Quasimodo Geniti—Peace Through His Wounds: The Office of the Keys and Christ’s Gift of Forgiveness
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, the Lord Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven” (John 20:19-23).
The disciples had heard from the women that the tomb was empty. Peter and John had seen it for themselves. Cleopas and another disciple had conversed with the risen Lord and had just recognized Him in the breaking of bread. They were in the process of relaying their eyewitness testimony to the eleven. As all this was unfolding, the disciples—except for Thomas—were gathered together, locked away for fear of the Jews. And at that very moment, our Lord Jesus made His first appearance to His disciples as a group since rising from the dead.
The first words our Lord spoke to them were: “Peace be with you.” This was no mere greeting. Christ’s words, “Peace be with you,” were a bestowal of the peace He had earned by His suffering, death, and resurrection. As Jesus spoke peace to His disciples, He also showed them His hands and His side—the marks of His suffering and death, the marks that had made peace between these fearful disciples and Almighty God. The wounds of our Lord are the proof and pledge of our peace with God—and our peace with one another.
As our Lord declared this peace and bestowed it upon His disciples, He also established the Office of the Keys. The Office of the Keys is “that special authority which Christ has given to His Church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.” According to these words, Bible-believing Christians confess: “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 intend to do better—this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.”
This Office of the Keys, exercised by Christ’s Church on earth, is a continuation of Christ’s bestowal of peace—a peace founded on His holy wounds. Today, through the Office of the Holy Ministry, your Lord Jesus still speaks peace to you and shows you His peace-making wounds, especially through the gift of Holy Absolution.
You can sometimes hear criticisms from Christians when they see other Christians using artwork that depicts Christ nailed to the cross. There was a beautiful and large crucifix in the sacristy of the church my previous congregation rents from the Episcopals in town. I heard from their altar guild chair that they used to put it up in the place of the bare cross during Lent. I asked her once if they ever thought about just using it again or all the time. She said, “Well Episcopals worship the risen Savior.” I had heard that from Baptist family members. I never thought I’d hear it from an Episcopal. There are also LCMS leaders citing as reason for the decline of the LCMS: “adding the body of Christ to our otherwise typically, generally vacant crosses — you know, that's one of the things that we've done, a lot, for years, for decades—for centuries—well, for decades—and our crosses are empty, symbolizing the resurrection: Jesus isn't on the cross anymore. But adding the body of Christ back.”
Whether you have a bare cross or a cross with the body of Christ isn’t something commanded or forbidden in Scripture. But reasons do matter. History and truth matter as well. Speaking of history, Christian churches have made use of the crucifix with Christ’s body depicted for nearly 2,000 years. Lutherans continued in that Christian tradition while Christians following in the footsteps of Urlrich Zwingli and John Calvin got rid of such Christian artwork. You’ll have trouble finding an old Lutheran Church in Europe that makes use of a bare cross unless it is a more recent change. We still have some of the chasubles that Luther used for Divine Service. You can google images. One of them has a huge crucifix on the back.
When our reason for criticizing the use of a crucifix is because Jesus is raised from the dead, we are also suggesting that any reminder of Christ suffering and dying on the cross is somehow problematic. Or that it could somehow make a Christian think that Christ is still on the cross and not risen from the dead. But this all loses sight of the Biblical truth.
The Scriptures never shy away from bringing us back to the suffering and death of our risen Lord because that is where He won peace for us. Scripture says, “God the Father has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins…For it pleased the Father that in Christ Jesus all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross” (Colossians 1:13-14, 19-20). St. Paul also said, “I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2) I’d run out of time if I showed you how often the Scriptures bring us back to the blood of Jesus poured out for our redemption. But consider this verse spoken by the Spirit through St. Paul regarding the Lord’s Supper. After telling us again the Words of Institution that Christ spoke over the bread and wine on that night in which He was betrayed, where Christ says, “This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me,” St. Paul concludes by saying, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). Why would we want to proclaim the death of Jesus? He is alive after all. Shouldn’t we be proclaiming the Lord’s resurrection?
The truth is that the Apostles and the Lord who sent them wanted the death of the Messiah to always be in the forefront of our minds alongside His resurrection from the dead. He is our crucified and risen Lord and Savior. He conquered death through His resurrection. But He also did away with our sins in His own death on the cross. “By His wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Our Lord is so concerned with us knowing that, “He was put to death for our transgressions and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25), that when He shows St. John a vision of heaven, our Lord manifests Himself as a lamb that looked as though it were slain but was standing. And when the slaughtered-yet-standing Lamb of God is worshiped in heaven, the choirs sing, “You are worthy…For You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:9-10).
Our Lord who is alive forevermore wants us to always remember where He won redemption for each of us. He wants us to know this no matter what Christian artwork we utilize. And that is why our Lord appears to His disciples and—while bestowing peace on them by His Words, He also shows them the wounds from His suffering and death still visible in His resurrected and glorified body. This peace that Christ gives by His Words and wounds remains even in the most severe outward turmoil and distress. It isn’t always or merely a peaceful, easy feeling. This peace belongs to you as a matter of fact in the very Words of Christ and by His wounds. Both His Words and wounds preach to you saying, “Your debt is paid. Your sin is covered. I have brought you back to God in peace.”
Our Lord Jesus shows the disciples on that first Easter Sunday evening and the next week that it is by His wounds that we have peace. Our Lord shows us where He won peace for us—His death on the cross for our sins. But in our Gospel today, Christ also shows where and when that peace He won on the cross is bestowed in the present when He institutes the Office of the Keys.
Jesus breathed on His disciples and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven” (John 20:22-23). These are the keys. A key to unlock the chains of sins wrapped around repentant believers and a key to bind those chains to the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.
We confess our sins and receive forgiveness when we pray to God directly in our own words or in the words of the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Also, when we pray one of the penitential psalms, or psalms of confession: Psalm 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143. And when we confess our sins to one another and forgive one another as Christians.
We confess our sins and receive God’s forgiveness through the exercise of the Keys when we participate in “The Preparation” before Divine Service officially begins, when we participate in Corporate Confession and Absolution, when we hear the Gospel preached by the called Minister, and wherever ministers preach and teach the Gospel of Christ faithfully according to Christ’s command.
It is for this reason that we Lutherans even retained Private Confession and Absolution. Our Confessions say: Our churches teach that private Absolution should be retained in the churches, although listing all sins is not necessary for Confession. 2 For, according to the Psalm, it is impossible. “Who can discern his errors?” (Psalm 19:12). AC XI They also say, it would be wicked to remove private Absolution from the Church. 4 [101] If anyone despises private Absolution, he does not understand what the forgiveness of sins or the Power of the Keys is. Ap XIIB (VI 3-4). Luther in the Smalcald Articles says, Since private Absolution originates in the Office of the Keys, it should not be despised, but greatly and highly esteemed, along with all other offices of the Christian Church. And the first constitution of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod says, Where private confession is in use, it is to be kept according to Article XI of the Augsburg Confession. Where it is not in use, the pastor is to strive toward introducing it.
Every exercise of the Office of the Keys, whether through Gospel preaching, Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, corporate or private absolution, each declaration of the forgiveness of sins is Christ bestowing peace on you through His Words and wounds. When Christ says, “Peace be with you,” He is not offering a mere greeting, but proclaiming the very Gospel itself—the announcement that we have peace with God and the forgiveness of sins. This same peace is given in the words of the Lord’s Supper: “This is My body given for you; this is My blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” To neglect Absolution because we hear the Gospel in the Sacrament would be no different than refusing to hear preaching altogether. Christ’s Gospel must ring out continually in the ears of every Christian. Therefore, we ought to receive it with joy wherever and whenever it is proclaimed—in the sermon, in the Sacraments, in Holy Absolution—and lift up our hands in thanksgiving that Christ speaks His peace to us again and again.
Let us pray. Lord God, heavenly Father, we give You thanks for Your inexpressible grace: that for the sake of Your Son, You have given us the Holy Gospel, instituted the Holy Sacraments, and established the Office of the Keys, that we may hear with our own ears the voice of Christ speaking peace to our troubled hearts. Grant us Your Holy Spirit, that we may heartily believe Your Word, gladly seek the comfort of Holy Absolution, and through Your gifts daily be strengthened in faith, until we obtain everlasting salvation; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Amen.
