A sermon shared with First Presbyterian Church, April 23, 2017,
Spring City, TN
Most people who read John
20:19-31 are immediately drawn to the experience of “doubting” Thomas, the
twin. But, some pastors and priests (even some parishioners?) are inclined to
hang onto verse 23 as a
justification for them to decide to forgive or condemn a person for their sins.
I will come back to that misunderstanding shortly.
However, at the outset, I must say how impressive are passages
such as the concluding verses of John
20, probably the original end of John’s gospel. They deserve attention because in
obvious and subtle ways Jesus directly connects the good news, his life,
death and resurrection, to the history
and covenant between God and Israel. In doing this, Jesus validates his person
as God’s Son (or God himself) and connects human sin, life and death, faith and
ultimately our calling as Christians to the good news and covenantal history.
Imagine in John’s account we
are in the shoes of the disciples after the crucifixion. We know only that Peter and the disciple run
to the tomb after Mary Magdalene told them someone has taken the body of Jesus.
Afterwards, Jesus appears only to Mary
Magdalene and she tells the disciples that she has seen Jesus. But, according
to the gospels, they do not understand any of this. Luke tells us the disciples
thought the women were telling them a tall tale.
Only later when Jesus speaks to
them in the locked room where they are hiding do they realize Jesus, the Son of
God, stands before them. He shows his wounds, and says, “Peace be with you.” It
must have been a terribly frightening scene to be confronted by the person of
God without that assurance of peace. (Luke 24:36-38 describes the
fear more explicitly.)
Jesus repeats his greeting twice
in this room, “Peace be with you.” Although
“Peace be with you” was a common greeting, Jesus and the disciples know it is comes
from the experience of Gideon
when the Angel of the Lord appeared before him and commanded that he
defeat the Midianites. (Angel of the Lord is a Hebrew euphemism for God
as the text of Judges shows later, since the name of God is too holy to be voiced.) Gideon did
not recognize God, and this command to deliver Israel from the hand of Midian
is so unreal that Gideon demanded proof. After the Angel of the Lord
demonstrated the power of God, Gideon fell on his face thinking he will die, and
exclaimed, “Help
me, Lord God! For I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” The Lord responded, “Peace be with you, you
shall not die.”
Appearing in an unimaginable way
and offering the assurance to the disciples, “Peace be with you” uses biblical
history to telegraph the assurance the Lord gave Gideon, that
they are safe in God’s presence. It also is a prelude to Thomas’ disbelief without
proof.
Jesus does more than use the
greeting to Gideon to reveal himself and new life. He ties his resurrection and
presence in this room to God directly by recalling the human history of life
and death, sin and faith in the Old Testament.
Immediately after saying,
“Peace be with you,” Jesus breathes on the disciples telling them they have
received the Holy Spirit. If you recall
the creation story in Genesis
2:7, when the Lord made Adam from dust, he was lifeless until the Lord blew
his breath into him.
This similarity to creation of
Adam when Jesus breathes on them cannot be lost on the disciples. From the beginning we hear that we are created by
God, and are a people troubled by sin that leads to death.
Though we
have received the breath of life through the breath of Adam, we still lost paradise. The Lord’s speaks to Cain after the murder of
Abel (in Gen. 3:19), “By
the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for
out of it you were taken, you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The
Psalmist (in Ps 104:29), laments
the anger of God towards his chosen people and the death we all face, “When you
(the Lord) hide your face, they (Israel) are dismayed; when you take away their
breath, they die and return
to their dust.”
Even Solomon (in Ecclesiastes 3) lamented that
our lot in life is to do our best to cling to the Law and live our days until
we die and our bodies return to dust and our breath returns to God. In the Hebrew
scripture, the breath of God is vital to life. It is the essence of life,
itself.
Thus, Hebrews believe the scripture states that when you die, God’s
breath returns to God. Now perhaps we can appreciate the comfort
of those words of Jesus, and the wind of the Holy Spirit. The two together
state, “Peace be with you, you shall not die.” At this moment, Jesus is accomplishing a new creation story, he breathes the breath of new
eternal life into the disciples, sealing God’s covenant!
After Jesus assures them they will
not die (“Peace be with you”) and breathes new life into them in this new
creation story, he gives them the commandment to proclaim the good news, heard
in one form or another in every gospel, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
The
disciples are newborn children of God given a new job or calling by Jesus to be
ministers of the gospel. He does not tell them to breathe new life into people,
or to judge them. He sends them to carry the Good News that people might
believe and repent, and be forgiven.
At
the outset I said some object to this, pointing to the next instruction after receiving
the Holy Spirit (v23), “If
you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of
any, they are retained.” Many denominations and pastors take this verse to
mean, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; but if you decide not to forgive the sins, they are not forgiven.”
They
use this passage to claim the authority and power to forgive and to call out
and judge sinners. Even John Calvin reads it this way. Among the evil he saw in the world, he
concluded only a few good people must be elected to eternal life. (and of
course, he is one of them!) As God has sent me, so I send you”…did Jesus judge or
forgive people?
What
is going on is that people are shoehorning scripture to conform it to their own
ideas about right and wrong, rather than God’s ideas. Let me explain how.
You
may remember the parable of the master of the field (Matt 20:1-16). The master
needed laborers and went out in the morning to hire workers at a given wage and
finding he needed more, continued hiring laborers throughout the day. At the
end of the day, he paid them all the same wage, even the person who only worked
an hour.
Where
is the justice in that? It is not right that the people who worked the longest get
the same reward as those who worked the least. But Jesus says that is what
grace is all about, it is his grace to give the way he sees it. It does not
matter how long it takes to find faith, or even what you have done on the road
to faith, when you see the light you get the same pay.
There
are two big lessons in these short verses. First, Protestant Christians believe
every one of us are commissioned to proclaim the Good News. We are all
ministers of Jesus. It is faith in the good news we proclaim that saves, not
being touched or judged by a pastor.
The
second lesson is that as ministers and sinners due to our own flaws, we
need a great amount of humility concerning another person’s sin or
righteousness to understand the instruction about forgiving and retaining sin.
We do not know what lies in the heart of another person, nor they, us. Taking
it further, when someone hurts you and then asks you to forgive them, how do
you know they truly earnest, or lying? The
best of us can be the worst of us and the worst can be the best. Only God knows
what is in a person’s heart.
Please
look at this verse closely. It says if
you forgive the sins of someone, they are forgiven. That is obvious. It fits nicely
with everything Jesus taught about forgiveness.
But
the second part is more complicated, “if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
What does it mean to say, “they (the sins of others) are retained?”
If
you are an expert in language, the verb in the expression, “They are retained,”
is the perfect tense. The perfect tense describes a past and completed event
that has a continuing effect in the present. It goes like this, “The bank foreclosed
on my car, therefore I am walking today.”
The
word “retained” means grasp, hold on to, take possession. So, if we retain the
sins of someone, it means we keep the sins with us. The consequence of not forgiving
sin plants them as a seed of resentment and judgement in our heart. We take on a
resentment continuing into the present and its burden on us grows. It stays
with you and stops any kind of reconciliation. We become gluttons of sin.
So,
this instruction does not mean, a pastor, a priest or a minister like you has
some special power vested by Jesus to forgive and absolve sin or condemn a
person for sin (only God can do that and he has through Jesus), but rather, it states
a high bar of caution for living the good life. We have the power to forgive
the sins of someone and to share the joy and freedom of a heart
unburdened by resentment and anger over their sin, even when an apology isn’t
forthcoming.
It
does not necessarily mean we should tolerate hurtful behavior indefinitely, or
not keep our eyes open for danger. It is a decision each must make in one’s
conscience. To separate from some person who has wronged you should be the
absolute last resort, done only to prevent anger and resentment from crippling
your ministry.
Remember
what Jesus did in that room. He breathed new life in us, made ministers of all
of us who believe. I invite you to think about your calling to be a minister or
an ambassador; and that Jesus tells us we can’t our best job of proclaiming the
forgiveness of the gospel and of feeding His sheep if we have a seed of
resentment growing in our heart - Even if you have not yet imagined yourself a
minister of God. AMEN.
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