"If you forgive..." John 20:23

Jesus says a thing that strikes Protestants the wrong way when he visits his disciples for the first time after the Resurrection: "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

The Roman Catholic sacrament of penance is based, at least in part, upon this text.  The priest has the power of absolution, the capacity to apply the merits of God's forgiveness or withhold them.

Protestants tend to focus on the power of Christ alone to forgive.  We tend to believe Jesus is in the business of forgiving sins and not in the business of using middle men or allowing redemption to be withheld.

So what does Jesus mean?

Let me offer a possibility.

The world is full of hurts and slights, remembrances of wrongs committed, sins past.  As a pastor, my first impression of a new congregation is always of a smiling group of caring people who love each other.  It takes time to learn who has done wrong to whom, who remembers being embarrassed at some point in the past, who took which side in some churchwide disagreement long ago.

Churches have these remembrances.  Families have them, too.  When couples bicker, often the real issue is not the issue being discussed.  Behind the hard feelings over some minor problem lies years of unresolved conflict over all kinds of issues.  The fight is rarely about the fight.  Old wounds may be found in city governments, in political feuds, in corporate board rooms, in staff dynamics in every workplace.  Grown adults hold secret grudges against each other because foolish actions from childhood.  Siblings hold resentment against each other, often into old age.  Even preachers hold grudges against each other, and sometimes even carry on the feuds of their fathers in ministry long after they are gone.  Nations and nationalities, ethnicities and regions, every kind of people group on earth has its file cabinet of wrongs committed against it by the others.

These memories cripple us.  They make us stupid.  They make cooperation impossible.  They poison us.  They perpetuate human hatred and cruelty unnecessarily.  They teach us that we are free to take revenge, to harm others in an attempt at self-preservation.

How can we ever be free?

Jesus teaches us that we, his people, have been given the power to offer forgiveness.  We have been offered the power to offer this world, its people, its groupings, the possibility that all the wrongs of the past might finally be let go.

The wrongs themselves no longer exist--they are in the past and the past no longer exists.  Sometimes, the memories themselves are misguided--sometimes people spend years full of hatred over a perceived wrong based on a misunderstanding.  But the memories of the wrongs are in the present and they are very real, and the power they hold to keep us stuck in cycles of recrimination is very very real.

Jesus took the wrongs of the world upon himself.  He held nothing against anyone. He made us a people who would offer his message of reconciliation and forgiveness.

If we don't let it go, then who will?  Maybe what Jesus meant by "if you retain the sins of any, they are retained," was this--if we who are called to the ministry of forgiveness and reconciliation refuse to forgive, then what hope is there in the world that it will ever be free?  If we who have been given the power of the Spirit to forgive, we who have been forgiven, choose to hold onto grudges and remember wrongs, than how will the world ever know the possibility of redemption?

"If you forgive...they will be forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."  I think Jesus is saying, "If you will offer forgiveness in this world, that the hope of forgiveness can set the whole world free.  If you who are forgiven will not offer forgiveness, then who will?  How will anyone ever know that there can be a different way to live?"

Prayer for Easter

oly God:

We give you thanks for this day, the one day that brings hope and light to every other day.

All year long, we wrestle with the challenges of life.  We fail, make mistakes, fall upon your grace, get back up and start again.  We deal with disappointments, setbacks, unexpected challenges.  We worry about the state of our world, of our nation, our state, our town.  We worry about the state of our families, our loved ones, our health, and sometimes, we worry about how much we worry.

But each year, we come to this day of Resurrection, this day of celebration, this day of victory, and everything else comes into perspective.

This day, we remember that the world’s greatest tragedy was followed by the world’s greatest miracle, and together the cross and open grave have become the fount of everything good this world has ever known.  And so, no matter what difficulties and heartaches we face, we can face them unafraid and look forward to the dawning of a new day.  Because you have shown us that nothing is impossible and that you can work great wonders out of the greatest defeats.

This day, we remember that you swallowed up sin and destroyed its power, that Jesus Christ was raised again imperishable.  So, even though we struggle against our own nature and we often fail, we are never lost in shame.  We can die to ourselves and live anew through the power of the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead.

This day, we proclaim that the forces that tear the people of our world apart will not have final say.  Forces of division, and war, poverty, famine, political corruption and polarization, every societal ill is part of an old and dying way of being in the world.  Today, we worship the true king, the Messiah who has been enthroned over every nation through you act of raising him from the dead.  We bow our knees before you and we give ourselves wholly to the one and only Lord of all.

This day, this resurrection day, we ask that the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead would bring new life to us.  O God, make us Easter people every day.  Let us live in the power of the Resurrection and live with the confidence of a people who serve a God who can do all things.  O God, let us build your everlasting Kingdom and not our own kingdoms of the dead and dying world that is passing away.  Let us never forget who your resurrection has made us, what it has made possible for us, what it requires of us.  

Give us new life.  May today be a resurrection for your people, for us, for the world you have loved so much.

Amen