This Easter Sunday sermon, preached by Rev. Wayne McArdle at the Gisborne Presbyterian Church, represents almost exactly what the “New Birth in Exile” series has been looking for in an Easter sermon. The chosen text was John 20:19–31 was used to convey many of the most important themes that properly belong to Easter preaching. It was not a vague sermon about hope, renewal, or religious encouragement. It was a sermon about the risen Christ, and more specifically, about the risen Christ who deliberately makes himself known by his wounds.
That was the sermon’s central strength. The preacher drew attention to the first thing Jesus does when he appears among the disciples: he shows them his hands and his side. The sermon rightly treated this not as an incidental detail, but as a deliberate act of self-disclosure. Christ does not return from the dead as though the cross were now behind him in some merely past-tense way. He returns as the crucified and risen Lord.
He intends to be known by his wounds on our behalf.
This is a profoundly Easter theme. The Jesus who stands among the disciples is not a different Christ from the one who was crucified. The risen Christ is the crucified Christ. The preacher expressed this well when he said that Jesus “wasn’t resuscitated, he was raised,” and then described him as “the first fruits of a new creation, the death of death, the beginning of everything.” That rightly locates Easter within the great biblical realities of death defeated, new creation inaugurated, and resurrection life revealed in Christ.
The sermon was also strong in its experiential application. Thomas was not handled merely as an interesting historical character. His unbelief was pressed upon the congregation as a mirror of the human heart. The preacher identified Thomas’s refusal to believe as more than careful scepticism; he described it as the sign of a heart “locked from the inside,” and then applied that condition to the natural state of every human heart apart from grace. That was one of the sermon’s most penetrating moments. It prevented the congregation from hiding behind Thomas as though doubt were always neutral or innocent.
The sermon also represented well the Easter theme of Christ’s gracious initiative. Thomas does not find Christ; Christ comes looking for Thomas. What a wonderfully non provocative way to preach election! The preacher rightly emphasized that Jesus knew Thomas’s words, came to him in his unbelief, and confronted him graciously: “Stop doubting and believe.” This gave the sermon a strongly evangelical tone. Christ does not leave the doubter sealed within his conditions. He comes, speaks, reveals himself, and summons faith.
The sermon further honoured the written Word as God’s appointed means of bringing later hearers to faith. The preacher’s treatment of John 20:31 was particularly helpful when he insisted that the written Word is not “second best” or a “consolation prize” for those who were not in the upper room. Rather, it is God’s ordained means of giving us the same Christ who appeared to Thomas and the disciples. That is not only good Johannine exposition; it is also deeply consonant with Reformed ordinary-means theology. Christ is truly presented to us in the Word by the Spirit.
The sermon also moved beyond mere historical fact to the necessity of personal life in Christ. The preacher asked the congregation whether they had “life in his name,” and he distinguished this from mere knowledge about Christ or religious information. He rejected the idea that Easter is about “some kind of religious improvement program,” insisting instead that it is “life from death.” That is exactly the kind of Easter distinction that needs to be made. Easter does not announce self-improvement. It announces resurrection life for those who are dead in sin.
Doctrinally, the sermon contained a rich cluster of Easter themes. It proclaimed the true deity of Christ in Thomas’s confession, “My Lord and my God”; the bodily resurrection of Jesus; the identity of the risen Christ as the same crucified Christ; the continuing significance of Christ’s wounds; the inability of the natural heart to come to faith apart from grace; Christ’s gracious pursuit of the doubting and unbelieving; the necessity of believing in him; the sufficiency and efficacy of the written Word; the Spirit’s work in giving resurrection life; union with Christ; regeneration; and the transition from death to life through faith in Christ’s name.
If there was any remaining vagueness in the understanding of some hearers concerning the significance of the resurrection, it most likely lay not in what the sermon proclaimed, but in what it left implicit. In particular, the sermon could have clarified more fully how Christ’s victory over death is accomplished through atonement. The preacher said truly that Christ is “the death of death” and that his wounds are the price he paid for sinners. But those statements would have carried even greater doctrinal clarity if the sermon had more explicitly explained why death had to be conquered by the bearing of sin, curse, and judgment.
Here the preacher had already provided the ideal exegetical doorway: the bronze serpent in Numbers 21. He reminded the congregation that Israel was dying in the wilderness after grumbling against God and Moses, and that God’s remedy was for Moses to lift up the bronze serpent so that those who looked would live. He then connected this to John 3:14–15, where Jesus says that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
That connection was exactly right. But a fuller exegesis of the bronze serpent would have clarified what was already implied in the sermon. The Israelites were not merely sick; they were under divine judgment and dying. The serpents were not random misfortune; they were God’s chastisement for sin. The people were dying because they had rebelled against the Lord. Therefore, the bronze serpent was not merely a healing symbol. It was a judgment-symbol. The very sign of the curse was lifted up before the dying people, and those who looked to God’s appointed remedy lived.
That is why John 3 is so theologically rich. When Jesus compares himself to the bronze serpent, he is teaching that the Son of Man must be lifted up under the sign of judgment. Christ is not personally sinful, but he is judicially identified with sinners. He bears the curse due to his people. He enters the place of condemnation. He is lifted up so that sinners dying under the poison of sin may look to him and live.
This would have further clarified the atonement logic beneath the sermon’s Easter proclamation. Christ does not conquer death merely by overpowering it. He conquers death by dealing with sin, because death is the wages of sin. Death has a sting, and that sting is sin. Therefore, if death is to be defeated, sin must be answered, guilt must be removed, judgment must be borne, and the curse must be exhausted. The resurrection is then not merely a display of divine power; it is the Father’s vindication that the Son’s atoning work is complete.
This fuller bronze-serpent exposition would also have clarified what John means when he says that these things are written so that we may believe that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of God.” The sermon quoted John 20:31, but the title “the Christ” could have been opened more fully. To believe that Jesus is the Christ is to believe that he is God’s anointed Messiah: Prophet, Priest, and King. As Prophet, he reveals God. As Priest, he offers himself as the atoning sacrifice for sin. As King, he conquers death and reigns over his people. Thomas’s confession, “My Lord and my God,” is therefore not merely a response to resurrection evidence; it is worship before the crucified and risen Messiah.
This could have sharpened a call to repentance and faith. The sermon already made clear that faith is not bare intellectual assent. Thomas does not merely say, “The evidence is convincing.” He confesses, “My Lord and my God.” Faith receives Christ himself. It is personal, submissive, worshipful, and Spirit-wrought. A fuller use of the bronze serpent would have deepened this point further: the sinner is not merely uncertain, wounded, or confused, but guilty, poisoned by sin, dying under judgment, and unable to heal himself. Faith is therefore the desperate looking of one who has no life in himself and no remedy apart from the lifted-up Christ.
All that aside, this sermon’s strength was that it truly did preach Christ and resurrection life. Its centre of gravity was the wounded and risen Lord, graciously revealing himself and calling forth faith. The point being made here is therefore not a correction of the sermon’s direction, but a suggestion for fuller doctrinal illumination. A more developed exegesis of the bronze serpent would likely have helped any hearers who needed clearer categories for what the sermon was already pressing upon them: that Christ’s wounds are atoning wounds, that death is conquered because their sin and judgment have been borne, that sinners live by looking to God’s appointed remedy, and that Thomas’s confession is the proper worshipful response to the crucified and risen Christ.
This, then, is what “The New Birth in Exile” series is looking for: not perfect sermons, nor sermons that say everything that could be said, but sermons marked by doctrinal richness, biblical categories, and experiential penetration. This sermon had all of this. Sure, a fuller use of the bronze serpent may have clarified some of what was implied concerning atonement and judgment, but the sermon itself stood in welcome contrast to the non-scriptural views of sin that have appeared elsewhere in the Series. It gave the congregation an experiential taste of Christ crucified and risen, and that is the essential burden of Easter preaching.
A full copy of the sermon may be viewed at The Reformed Pastor's YouTube channel
More articles in this Series are at The New Birth in Exile page.
