JOHN 20:19-23

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”

FORGIVENESS RENEWS THE WORLD

This is the first time that Jesus meets the disciples as a group. They are afraid, because for all they know, the Roman and Jewish authorities may be after them as well. They are also at the beginning of a lifelong journey, on mission in the world, now without Jesus. Till today, Christians are following Jesus in the same way: we are in the world, and he is in heaven.

Just like those disciples on that day, we know the Risen Jesus. They had the privilege of knowing Jesus when he first came into the world. But after his death on the Cross, he is different, he came into the room despite the fact that the door was locked. The Resurrection has revealed his divine power in a new way. He is truly Lord the of all, the living and the dead.

Also, just like the first disciples, Christians are a community, a group of people with all of the ups and downs which we bring to the church. And Christians, like everyone else, need help when we do wrong to each other. Sometimes Church people gossip, or try to be the ones in charge, or are envious of others who get more attention.

So think about Jesus’s first gift to the Church: the power to forgive sins. Of course, any one can say sorry and anyone can forgive. You don’t need to be a Christian to forgive. But Jesus is doing much more than telling us to be forgiving, he is giving us power. We can tell that this power to forgive is part of his divine nature, because he breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit”. God himself comes to live within us when we become Christians. You may also notice that God breathes into the people he first creates in the book of Genesis (Chapter 2). And a couple of times, Paul speaks about Christians as a New Creation (Galatians 6, 2 Corinthians 5).

The Risen Jesus offers his disciples the power of becoming a New Creation because the first Creation, which God first called good, and very good, has fallen due to our sin. This means that all of us face spiritual death, and that the whole of creation is doomed to futility (Romans 8). So it is the gift of forgiveness which gives us all hope.

Christians have been given an amazing gift by the Risen Jesus. Now it’s up to us to use, enjoy, and share the gift. How much can we allow the gift of forgiveness to change our own individual hearts, and our communities? How can Christian communities show others that we have allowed the gift of forgiveness to change how we relate to each other?

And let’s remember that the power of forgiveness is not just for us. We need to look at the world around us and see people struggling because they hurt each other. We need to see people stuck in the old ways of the world, which may leave them without hope. How can we share the power of forgiveness with people around us? Jesus leads us to the ways of self-sacrifice, the way of the cross, for others. May we receive this amazing gift and allow God to renew all of us, to His glory.