The Mission of Forgiveness

 John 20: 19-31  Easter 2  April 12, 2026

 

Jesus Christ and His Apostles
Nicholas Martinez Ortiz

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 almost 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 obviously 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 the church has believed-and acted  –

as if Jesus gave this mandate to the church

in order for the church to be the arbitrator of

who gets into heaven and who does not.

It has preached morality: a list of dos and don’ts

and if you fail at this list, then you need forgiveness

formal forgiveness that is meted out by the church

and if you didn’t get to church, or you didn’t follow the right steps,

or if you aren’t properly sorry enough,

or you broke one of the big or hot-button sins,

then you’re not a candidate for the church’s forgiveness

and therefore not a candidate for heaven, or salvation

or God’s love or whatever the pinnacle

of the church’s spiritual quest is for that era.

 

The Roman Catholic church had an extremely overt 

and systematized version of this, especially for the first couple

millennium of the church,

but the protestant church has developed its own

covert more sneaky versions of this.

But the result is the same.

Forgiveness is doled out by the institution in limited,

reserved ways.

The church put itself in charge of personal morals

and makes itself the gatekeeper to heaven.

 

Is that what Jesus meant?

Is forgiveness about giving the church authority

over controlling people’s eternal fate?

 

Or did Jesus mean something else?

What if forgiveness is less about the authority of the church

and more about restoring relationships?

What if forgiveness is about dealing with the ongoing sin

and fights and disagreements and conflicts that this world

understands and knows all too much about and

finds it so easy to become a part of.

 

 Maybe the mission of forgiveness is about leading the world

in reconciliation instead of destruction.

Of understanding instead of contempt.

That seems more like a mission that risen Christ

would give the church: to practice and to model, and teach and

aid in restoring relationships.

 

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 one big example

of the forgiveness that God offers the whole world.

 

God came to earth in the life of Jesus,

and humanity killed him in one of the worst ways possible.

But God didn’t respond with hatred or punishment.

God was not counting up how many sins were broken

and reaping revenge on those who would do this.

God responded with resurrection.

Reconciliation between God and the world.

Resurrection is forgiveness.

 

And resurrection tells us that no matter what has taken place,

There is hope. 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.

 

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.

  

Now sometimes wounds are too deep

to jump to forgiveness too quickly.

Sometimes people expect people who have been hurt

to just forgive and forget, to brush their wounds under a rug

and move on as if nothing happened.

But Jesus said:

If you forgive the sins of any,

their sins have been forgiven them;

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

 

What if retaining sins, wasn’t holding a grudge,

or condemning people eternally.

• What retaining sins meant working for justice?
• What if it meant naming the harms that were done
• What if it meant understanding that real healing

requires accountability?

What if retaining sins meant actually working towards forgiveness

until forgiveness was possible?

 

What if Jesus followers actually spent time on this over the last two thousand years. 

What if we were in the business of forgiveness,

instead of being in the business of the condemnation,

or fanning the flames of hate and division?

Or instead of being in the business of counting how many angels

danced on the head of a pin,

What if the church was in the business of forgiveness,

instead of in the business of business and making money,

What if we worked on the business of forgiveness 

as much as we worked on the business of worship  (oh my, did I say that?)

 

The work of forgiveness is hard.

In our personal lives and as communities and as nations.

What if the church were actually in the business

of doing the mission that Jesus gave his first disciples?

What if the church had been doing that for the past

2000 years instead of what it’s been doing?

What if we could start doing that now?

The church could radically re-shape the world we live in.

There have been segments of the church

who have led communities in the difficult

work of forgiveness after horrible situations.

In South Africa for instance.

 

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 multiple hangings –

although they may have deserved it.

With the leadership of Episcopal Bishop Desmond Tutu’s

Nelson Mandela called for what they called the

Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

 

In this public commission, which was a court-like body

people who committed human rights crimes

would admit to being a party to the oppression,

they would account their crimes and abuses,

then they would listen to the stories and testimonies

of the effects that abuse as told by their victims.

This would create a permeant record of the events.

In turn, the guilty people would be forgiven.

The objective was not punishment, but

reconciliation of the community.

 

 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 and a path to justice.

And there is an effort at dismantling the racism that still exists.

Black people and white people are working together

towards that. Where there could have been destruction

there has been ongoing forgiveness. There is hope there.

 

Bishop Desmond Tutu, said this:

“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."

 

To believe in forgiveness, to work towards forgiveness

sincerely believes in the humanity of every person,

To believe in forgiveness recognizes every

person as a child and creation of God

Forgiveness believes in the possibility of

redemption for everyone and every situation.

True forgiveness is the way to peace.

 

When we truly believe in forgiveness and resurrection

there is no room for war. No room for bombs or tanks or guns.

There is no room for genocide or threats of genocide.

 

With the hope of forgiveness we are open

to a way of life that restores and transforms,

instead of one that kills and destroys.

If we really believe in the Resurrection,

then we believe in hope, redemption, and restoration.

Any nation that thinks itself a Christian nation

would resort to the hard work of forgiveness and not war.

 

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.

And Christ comes into that room with a word of forgiveness:

“peace be with you.” Jesus says. “As God sent me to forgive you,

you also forgive others.”

 

Forgiveness is what we were 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 that 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 the church,

and resurrection is forgiveness.

And forgiveness is our business.