Forgiveness is our Business

John 20: 19-31 
Easter 2 
April 16, 2023

By Faith Not Sight
Alix Beaujour

 

The Resurrected Christ pays a visit to the disciples this week.

They are hiding together behind a locked door in fear.

And Jesus enters their locked room.

 

We read this gospel lesson every year on

the second Sunday of Easter and most of the time

we focus our time on Thomas and his doubt.

Now, I happen to like Thomas.

He left that locked room when no one else would.

He went out to get everyone coffee or lunch

or to try and find Jesus or whatever he was doing.

He was the brave one in the group.

He just happened to miss all the action.

And for the record, I don’t have a problem with his doubt at all.

I think doubt is perfectly normal in the course of our faith life.

But we can talk about him another year.

Because we do talk about him most every year.

And in all the hubbub about Thomas, we often of miss

a very important thing here:

The resurrected Jesus came to the

disciples and gave them a mission.

He says it plainly to the disciples,

“Peace be with you, As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

 

Jesus has returned to give

the disciples peace in their fear,

to give them the presence of the Holy Spirit

And at this point in the narrative,

he also gives them a clear mission:

 

If you forgive the sins of any,

their sins have been forgiven them;

if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.

 

For a long time many in the church have believed-

or acted at least – that Jesus sends

our churches out primarily for two things:

For recruitment – so we can

increase the number of Christians in the world

And/or to tell people about

the rules and about morality –

and to scold people for getting it wrong.

 

Those are noble causes.

But neither of them are

what Jesus sends the disciples to do.

here at this very important moment after his resurrection.

He doesn’t say to the disciples,

“make sure you get a lot of new members,

OR make sure you teach

everyone what the rules are.”

 

Jesus sends the disciples out into

the world with one main purpose:

That is forgiveness.

“as the Father has sent Me, I also send you." He says,

"Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any,

their sins have been forgiven them;

if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained."

Forgiveness. This is what Jesus

sends the disciples out to do.

To forgive one another and to let others

know about God’s forgiveness.

This is Jesus’s gift to his disciples

and this is the disciples gift to the world.

And this is what we uniquely have to offer.

 

There is an Episcopal priest named Robert Capon

who writes wonderful thing

mostly about Jesus’ parables. He writes:

The world is in the morality and

rules business and they succeed at that.

What the world cannot get right,

however, is the forgiveness business –

and that, of course, is the church's real job.

She is in the world to deal with the Sin

which the world can't turn off or escape from.

She is not in the business of telling the world what's

right and wrong so that it can do good and avoid evil.

She is in the business of offering— to a world

which knows all about that tiresome subject –

forgiveness for its chronic unwillingness to take its own advice.

 

But the minute she even hints that morals, and not forgiveness,

is the name of her game, she instantly corrupts

the Gospel and runs headlong into blatant nonsense.

The church becomes, not Ms. Forgiven Sinner, but Ms. Right.

Christianity becomes the good guys in here 

versus the bad guys out there. Which, of course, is pure tripe.

The church is nothing but the world under the sign of baptism.

 

On this second Sunday of Easter, we and the disciples

are sent to the world to tell it of God’s forgiveness.

We are sent to act out own forgiveness of others.

We are sent to forgive.

And why?  Because we believe in the Resurrection.

Not just in the stark fact that Jesus was raised from the dead.

But we believe that the Resurrection of Jesus 

was just one big example of the new life that God offers the whole world.

 

The Resurrection tells us that God is not spending time

writing down when we’ve been naughty and when

we’ve been nice.

God is not saving up and will make us pay for them one day—

The Resurrection says that if God could forgive

the crucifixion, God can forgive anything.

 

We believe in the Resurrection which tells us

that God won’t check the list twice or once,

God has thrown out the list all together.

Resurrection tells us that no matter what has taken place,

God can and will create New Life.

God will forgive the old and make the new.

No matter how bad it has gotten, God will redeem the world.

 

And that is Forgiveness.  That is what the church is sent out for.

Because we believe that Christ is risen,

we believe that redemption is possible in all situations.

For decades, people suffered under the

horrible racist oppression of Apartheid in South Africa. 

The white government sanctioned stiff segregation, kidnappings,

killing and torture for anyone who rebelled against it.

 

After being released after 30 years in prison, once in power,

Nelson Mandela did not call for retaliation and 

uprising against the white government oppressors.

Although no one could have blamed him.

He didn’t even call for a Nuremburg type trial

like after WW 2 that ended in hangings –

although they may have deserved it.

With Bishop Desmond Tutu’s help,

he called for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

 

In this commission,

people would admit to being a party to the oppression,

then they would listen to the stories of the

horror told by the victims. In turn, they would be forgiven.

 

This commission did its work for two years.

It hasn’t been perfect in South Africa,

after decades of oppression, there is still

rampant inequality, poverty, and as a result, crime,

but there has been a noticeable absence of

bloody, civil wars which have arisen in other places in Africa.

There has not been an attempt

at ethnic cleansing which certainly could have happened.

And  there is a presence of justice.

Black people and white people are working together.

There is hope for that nation.

 

Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Episcopal

 archbishop who lead the commission:

“Forgiveness is an act of much hope and not despair.

It is to hope in the essential goodness of people

and to have faith in their potential to change.

It is to bet on that possibility.

Forgiveness, is not opposed to justice,
especially if it is not punitive justice, but restorative justice,
justice that does not seek primarily to punish the perpetrator, to hit out,
but looks to heal a breach, to restore a social equilibrium
that the atrocity or misdeed has disturbed.

Ultimately there is no future without forgiveness."

Jesus has come into the room. The pain is still visible,

the crucifixion has not been forgotten and swept under the table.

The wounds are still there for Thomas to see and put his fingers in. 

But Christ still comes with a word of forgiveness.

“Receive the Holy Spirit. 

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them;

if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

The ELCA’s  former presiding Bishop, Mark Hanson asked:

“Do you think by that Jesus could possibly mean

that if I fail to tell my neighbor, my colleague at work,

my son or my daughter,

the Good News that God in Christ forgives you,

then their sins now belong to me?”

It’s an interesting way to look at what Jesus said.

 

Forgiveness is what we are sent out to share with the world.

God’s forgiveness and our own forgiveness.

Forgiveness is new beginnings. Forgiveness is hope for the future. 

Forgiveness means that the past won’t hold us back.
Forgiveness means relationships can start again.
Forgiveness means that life can start again.
Forgiveness is hope for all of God’s people.

When we share forgiveness with a friend or a relative

or with a stranger, or an enemy,

or with those who have done us harm –

it is the Resurrection of Christ made real to the world.

It is the hope and promise of New Life.

 

Resurrection is God’s gift to us.

Resurrection is forgiveness.

Forgiveness is our business