II Easter – May 1, 2011 – Year A
“Receive the Holy Spirit,” Jesus says, breathing upon his disciples. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven…; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
The day of resurrection was not yet over, and already their risen Lord had work for them to do.
The disciples were still reeling from the events of the past three days—the days the Church calls Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and Easter Day—trying to recover from the shock of seeing Jesus arrested, put on trial, humiliated, and gruesomely executed and trying to get their minds around the possibility that he had indeed been raised from the dead.
All this was already a lot to take in, a lot to deal with, in a very short span of time, and all of a sudden, as they huddled together in fear that there was a warrant out for their arrest too, here was Jesus, the risen Lord, appearing to them and giving them their marching orders.
“Peace”—Shalom—be with you. Receive the Holy Spirit.”
Just as God breathed life into the human being which God had formed from the dust of the ground, so now Jesus’ gift of divine breath brought New Life to the ranks of the frightened disciples and his greeting brought reassurance to their troubled souls; peace, shalom—healing, health, wholeness—had been restored to their relationship with Jesus, the Christ of God, a relationship that seemed irreparably fractured, once the disciples had forsaken Jesus and fled.
Wonder of wonders!
Without even asking for forgiveness, they had been forgiven.
And now that peace was restored, the real work could begin.
“If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Now that the disciples themselves had been granted forgiveness, before they even asked, they were to pass it on.
I imagine that the disciples drew back at first at the thought of being shouldered with such an enormous task, just as we in the Church today are likely to draw back at the thought of forgiving or retaining sins; to many the thought of forgiving or not forgiving sins seems awfully presumptuous.
Yet it is indeed this very mission—a mission which promises the healing peace that Jesus brought to the disciples that night—it is this very mission that we in the Church, as heirs of those disciples, are expected to carry out.
One of the reasons that some Christians shy away from the thought of forgiving or not forgiving sins is the understanding that it is God alone who forgives sins and that it is presumptuous of the Church to imagine that it can grant or withhold God’s forgiveness—influence God’s grace one way or the other—on a whim.
And they are right.
It is God alone who forgives sins, and the Church has neither the authority nor the capacity to refuse God’s forgiving grace to anyone; no one can stop the flow of God’s grace.
If this is true, then how is the Church to interpret this mission that we have been given?
It may help us to think of our mission of forgiveness not as some sort of privilege, but as a responsibility, not as a license to wield authority, but as an assignment to be completed.
In effect what Jesus said to his disciples then Jesus says to the Church today: “Your mission is to declare God’s forgiveness wherever it is needed in the world (and there is no place in the world where it is not needed). If you do not do what you have been assigned to do, it will not get done.”
We’re not talking about arrogant presumption here, but something entirely different.
The Church has been given the responsibility of declaring God’s forgiveness, of offering God’s healing, of paving the way for God’s redemption in what seem to be unforgivable, irremediable, unredeemable situations; this is the exercise of Christian ministry not in place of the finest therapeutic methods that can be devised and implemented by our God-given reason, but in addition to those methods, not as their competitor, but as a complement to them.
And, yes, sometimes the only way healing of any kind can begin is with the assurance of God’s forgiveness.
And if the Church will not be the channel of God’s forgiveness, then who will?
If the Church will not pronounce God’s absolution, if the Church will not proclaim the truth of God’s redeeming power in each and every situation, then who will?
This is not to say that God cannot not find other ways to accomplish the Church’s mission, when the Church, for one reason or another, fails to carry it out; but if God has given us the means to accomplish this mission, why not cooperate?
More often than not carrying out the Church’s mission of declaring God’s forgiveness can be something as commonplace as reassuring someone who is on the verge of despair that he or she is truly loved.
Having the assurance that God loves you no matter how bad a person you may think you are is a message of inestimable worth, a message you and I and everyone else in the world need to hear over and over again.
And it is the Church, ever since that first Easter Day when Jesus breathed the divine breath of God’s Holy Spirit upon the disciples, our predecessors—it is the Church that has been entrusted with this message of healing and reconciliation.
Needless to say, this makes the Church much more important in the scheme of things than most Christians probably realize.
It suggests, in fact, that in the present scheme of things, the Church is practically indispensable.
As one of the primary instruments of God’s redemption in the world, we find ourselves entrusted with a truly formidable task, but by no means an impossible one.
God’s only requirement of us, it turns out, is that you and I be willing to reach out in the power of Christ’s love to each other and to anyone needing the assurance of God’s never failing love and mercy and gratefully proclaim the healing word: “Our God is a forgiving God!”
To be able to say that with any kind of confidence we need to bear in mind that we ourselves, as were those frightened disciples on the verge of becoming stalwart apostles, are a forgiven people, who, thanks to God’s Holy Spirit living in us, will be given not only the courage to speak and to act decisively in any situation to which we may be called, but the grace to help bring to fulfillment the healing and wholeness that particular situation requires as well.
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