Sermon – Wounds

(I preached this sermon on Sunday April 12, 2026 at Christ Lutheran Church in Harrisburg, PA. It is based on John 20:19-31. You can listen to the audio of the sermon here.)

It is the evening of Easter.

The tomb is empty.
Mary has already seen Jesus.
The news is out.

And where are the disciples?

They are locked in a room.

Not just hiding. Not just afraid.

They have put their hope in the lock.

They have placed their trust in something they think they can control.

A door. A barrier. Something solid. Something predictable.

If we can just keep the door shut…
If we can just stay inside…
If we can just manage the risk…

Then maybe we will be okay.

And before we judge them too quickly, we should be honest.

We do the same thing.

We put our hope in things we can calculate.

Election results.
Who is in power and who is not.
Money in the bank or the lack of it.
A show of strength.
Certainty.

We build our lives around what feels secure.

We lock the door and tell ourselves, this will save us.

And into that room, Jesus comes.

Not by breaking the door down.
Not by forcing his way in.
Not by meeting violence with violence.

He just appears.

As if the lock never mattered.

As if the thing they trusted to keep them safe was never really the point.

Jesus does not follow the formula.

He does not do what anyone expects.

He disrupts it.

It is like those moments when people protest without shouting, without fighting, without giving the response that those in power are ready for. Just standing there. Quiet. Present. Refusing to play the part.

And suddenly the whole system does not know what to do.

That is what Jesus is doing here.

He refuses to play by the rules of fear and control.

And then he speaks.

“Peace be with you.”

That is the first thing.

Not explanation.
Not strategy.
Not even comfort in the way we might expect.

Peace.

But before they can even process that, he does something else.

He shows them his wounds.

Jesus is risen.
Death has been defeated.
And he still has the wounds.

Good Friday is still there.
As much as we would like to move past it, it has not disappeared.
The wounds prove that.

But it is no longer the end of the story.

This is one of the strangest parts of the story.

Jesus is risen.
Death has been defeated.
And the wounds remain.

He does not hide them.
He does not cover them.
He does not move past them.

He shows them.

The marks of the nails.
The place where the spear went in.

The wounds of violence.
The wounds of a world that crushes what it cannot control.

And they are still there.

The resurrection does not erase the wounds.

It reveals them.

Now here is where this gets hard.

Because we are talking to people who already carry wounds.

People who have been hurt by arrangements of power that do not care about them.
People who have been pushed aside.
People who are tired.
People who are trying to survive.

So how do we talk about wounds without adding more weight?

We have to be clear about what these wounds are.

These are not signs of failure.

These are not things to be ashamed of.

These are not proof that the world was right about you.

These are the marks of what the world does.

They tell the truth.

They expose the lie.

The world wounds in order to control.
The world wounds in order to silence.
The world wounds in order to make people fall in line.

But Jesus takes those same wounds and does something different.

He shows them.

He names them without words.

And in doing so, he breaks their power.

Because the wounds are no longer hidden.
They are no longer something to be used against him.

They become part of the story of how God brings life out of death.

If you follow Jesus, you will have wounds.

There is no way around that.

You can choose an easy life.
Or you can choose a life that forms something real in you.

You can go along with what the world demands.
Stay quiet. Look away. Play your part.

Or you can follow Jesus.

But you cannot do both.

And for those who already carry wounds, hear this clearly.

Your wounds are not the end of your story.

They are not something God ignores.

They are not something Jesus asks you to pretend are not there.

They are something Jesus understands.

Something Jesus carries too.

Something that, somehow, God will use in ways this world cannot understand.

After showing them his wounds, Jesus says it again.

“Peace be with you.”

Not the kind of peace the world talks about.

Not the kind of peace that comes from power.

Not the kind of peace that is really just a pause before the next round of harm.

This is a different kind of peace.

The world tries to create peace through force.

Control people enough, threaten enough, dominate enough, and call that peace.

But it never lasts.

Because it is built on fear.

Jesus offers something else.

A peace that does not come from control.
A peace that does not depend on winning.
A peace that does not require enemies to be crushed.

A peace that comes from a different way of being.

And then he does something that feels just as surprising as everything else.

He breathes on them.

And he gives them the Holy Spirit.

And the first thing he talks about is forgiveness.

That is the first instruction.

Not organize.
Not build power.
Not protect yourselves.

Forgive.

Why forgiveness?

Because without forgiveness, nothing changes.

Without forgiveness, the same harm just keeps moving.

From one person to another.
From one group to another.
From one generation to another.

Forgiveness is how the cycle stops.

Now we need to be very clear.

Forgiveness is not pretending something did not happen.

Forgiveness is not allowing harm to continue.

Forgiveness is not reconciliation at all costs.

Forgiveness is about what happens inside of you.

It is refusing to let what was done to you control what you become.

It is refusing to carry forward the same harm that was given to you.

It is choosing a different way, even when everything in you wants to respond the old way.

It is how something new begins.

Peace is the way.

Forgiveness is the first step into it.

Then we come to Thomas.

Thomas gets a bad reputation.

But that is not what is happening.

Thomas was not there the first time.

The others saw Jesus.
The others saw the wounds.
The others heard the peace.

Thomas is not asking for something extra.

He is asking for what they already received.

He is being honest.

He refuses to pretend.

He refuses to go along just to fit in.

He refuses a secondhand faith.

Unless I see.
Unless I touch.
Unless this is real for me.

I cannot accept it.

That is not doubt.

That is honesty.

And a week later, Jesus comes back.

Same room.
Same fear.
Same locked doors.

And again, the doors do not matter.

Jesus comes straight to Thomas.

Offers the same thing.

Wounds.
Presence.
Peace.

And Thomas responds with the strongest confession in the whole Gospel.

“My Lord and my God.”

The one who would not pretend becomes the one who sees most clearly.

This is not a story about doubt.

It is a story about honesty.

It is a story about alignment.

It is a story about what happens when your life and your faith actually come together.

Because we all know how to wear masks.

We know how to say the right things.
Look the right way.
Play the part.

We know how to survive by blending in.

But Jesus is not asking for performance.

Jesus is inviting something else.

A faith that is real.

A faith that is honest.

A faith that does not hide wounds.
A faith that does not depend on certainty.
A faith that is willing to follow a different way.

And here is the good news.

Jesus does not wait for us to get it right.

Jesus does not wait for us to be fearless.

Jesus does not wait for the doors to be unlocked.

He comes anyway.

Into locked rooms.

Into fear.

Into places where hope has been misplaced.

He comes carrying wounds.

He comes speaking peace.

He comes offering forgiveness.

He comes inviting us into a life that does not follow the rules of the world.

And that changes everything.

Because it means the things we trust to save us are not what actually save us.

It means the fear that keeps us locked away does not have the final word.

It means the wounds we carry are not the end of the story.

It means there is another way to live.

Not easy.

Not safe in the way the world defines safety.

But real.

Alive.

Free.

So the question is not whether Jesus will show up.

He already has.

The question is what we will do when he does.

Will we keep trusting the lock?

Or will we receive the peace he offers?

Will we keep hiding our wounds?

Or will we see them for what they are and what God is doing through them?

Will we keep living behind the mask?

Or will we step into a faith that is honest and whole?

Jesus is still walking into locked rooms.

Still carrying wounds.

Still speaking peace.

Still offering forgiveness.

And still inviting us to follow him.

Thanks be to God. Amen.