Low and naked [Easter 2; St. John 20:19-31]

Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!

The same speaks to us today, saying,

“^{25 '}Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.'”

Today is lovingly called Low Sunday, not just because of the stark attendance numbers, when compared to last Sunday, but because Jesus is resurrected and we are not. Thus, the low feeling Christians get from being left behind, so to speak.

Now, because we are here, we must deal with ISIS, the erosion of religious freedom, and unbelief in general. What they present us with, is an increasingly tantalizing picture of life without belief and, as is evidenced by the low attendance numbers, we believe it.

Consider the lilies in this room. They are lovely, yes? The sight and the smell of any flower really brightens up the place. Yet, what happens when you open it up? What happens when you strip away the petals and the stem? You find that the inside is no longer beautiful.

In fact, if you strip away anything in similar manner, you find that all of stuff is composed of the same stuff and really not that special or different. We spoke of this lack of wonder on Maundy Thursday, as Jesus washed the Apostles. There is nothing special about stuff, it just so happens to be arraigned in a different way. It’s all the same.

The Church has been stripped in like manner. On the outside, she looks mildly pleasing. She has an appealing building that usually stands out in the neighborhood. She has signs to denote her position and what she is about. She has art and decorations and she usually amasses quite a few people doing whatever.

But, take away any of those things and you are left with a relativism that doesn’t care where you “do church”. Take away the artwork and you are left with boredom. Take away the interior design and you are left with a warehouse or pole-barn. Take away all that the Church holds dear to teach and to preach and you are left with nothing special.

It is at this point that American Christianity says, “Now we have made it”. They rejoice in the fact that they have finally stripped the Church down to her bare essentials. That now we have the basic fundamentals of “being a Christian” and it looks like a trampled and dissected lily.

Indeed, you have gotten so close to this truth, that you can finally declare everyone is welcome, everyone is accepted, everything is believed, and everything is ok. And when you believe in everything, you believe in nothing and you cease to be the Church, you cease to be Christian, and you become just like everyone else.

Repent. The move from belief to unbelief is incredibly easy and painless. It seems as if you hardly notice it. So much so, that our Lord tells us that the road to death is wide and easy to walk on. For when the Church is seen for what it is made of, it is not special, it is not different, and it is not worth your time.

Dear Christians, if you were to truly dissect the Church to its bare-most parts, you would not find “similar stuff”, you would find other-worldly stuff. You would find body and blood; you would find a soul; you would find a man, sitting at the right hand of God, ordering all things.

Jesus had seen the de-construction of His Church from the beginning. Jesus had seen the harlotry rampant among His own people and had even declared to them, “If you want to be bare and nonessential, then you can be. Let the barbarian horde be your new masters, instead of me.”

However, even greater than the harlotry practiced and the turning away from God, was Jesus’ turning to God. Greater than any of the atrocities and lies committed in the name of the Church is the atrocity of Christ on the cross and the truth that He has risen from the dead.

When you strip the Church down to its core, you find Christ on the cross. There are no “essentials” and there are no “fundamentals”. If you have to ask about which fundamentals are necessary to being a Christian, you have already lost the battle.

To all things Christian, Christ is fundamental. Jesus, both God and man, His Gospel preached, His Sacraments, and His sacrifice on the cross is essential to being Christian. If you cut one thing or another or doubt the validity of any of Jesus, you are missing the mark.

See the interaction between Jesus and St. Thomas. Jesus did not tell him to look for miracles, or to use the power of God, or to just have faith. Jesus said Look, Touch, Hear, smell, and taste. In fact, miracles and life changing events are so far down the list, that they pale in comparison to the crucifixion.

Between Jesus and St. Thomas is the revelation of the physical; the touching and seeing the Church. Jesus comes in this way which can not be set aside as non-essential. The Sacraments constitute and make up the entirety of the promises Jesus makes to you.

For it is there, with all your senses, that you find Christ crucified for you. It is in baptism that you are killed and made alive toward God. It is in the Gospel that you are remade in order to believe. It is in the Lord’s Supper that you are forgiven and saved.

Jesus has stripped away your false pretenses and false ideals. He has taken your very heart, crushed it into gravel, and has given you a heart of flesh. Your dry bones of novelty, sin, and death are burned away. You are baptized, now.

You are baptized into the entire body of Christ where there is no “unnecessary”. We don’t live by a life that is just the “bare necessities”. We live by the life of Christ: full and abundant. We don’t live in a Church that is “fundamental”, where we are looking for what we can trim to be more relevant.

We live in a history and a tradition that is not our own. We live in a salvation purchased in Blood. We live in a right Spirit that has traversed death and come out alive. There is a fullness to the Church that can only be expressed by us in words, art, song, and emotion.

After that, is faith: Faith that it has all been done for us, Faith that there is so much more than we can realize, and Faith to believe that it is all given to us simply and freely in the Sacraments.

Nothing is left out by the Church. She can be stripped of art, walls, and rights and yet still be the haven where Christ comes to serve eternal life in His Supper. If forced to live in exile or captivity, the Church’s one foundation is Jesus and His justification and nothing else.

And since we are children of the day; since we have such a great high priest; we are moved by the Spirit to fill this church. Not just with people, but with love, song, prayer, art, decoration and every other thing imaginable that will tell of Christ serving us in the Divine Service.

In Faith, there is nothing that a Christian can take away from the Church and be satisfied. In Faith, it is all necessary, because Jesus gives it all and promises salvation. In all truth, you can not peel anything away from the Church or yourself, for the life you live is not your own, but Christ’s.

The point is that, in His bloody and sacrificial death; in Jesus, God is stripped bare in order that we may see the true love of God on the cross for us.