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How To Forgive Sins, In Three Easy Steps. (And If You Act Now, Get A Free Lesson In Condemnation, Too!)

John 20:19-31

W hen it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then 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." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "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."

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

 

Okay, so you had to love the title, right? I love these self=help things, or television product offers, where you get this life-changing product, or life-saving new way of living, and it’s only three easy payments of X, or if you act now, you also get some steak knives, and so-and-so, the start of a certain television show endorses it… Steve Martin used to have a comedy routine where he would offer to tell people “How to make a million dollars and not pay any taxes.” First, he said, get a million dollars. Next, don’t pay any taxes. And when the IRS comes around, simply say, “I forgot.”

 

Now, in this case, let’s examine the situation in the biblical story first, and then I’ll give you my handy-dandy three-step method, and your special lesson, too.

 

The disciples were gathered in a house on the evening of Easter Sunday. Have you ever taken a trip and had everything go wrong? Once, when I was a teenager, my family went to India, everyone except my oldest sister, who was in college. We got to our first stop, in Kashmir. We were going to stay in a city called Srinagar, which is famous for its houseboats. We were supposed to stay on one and enjoy the luxury and beauty… and it was lovely. Except, it turns out, that we had been taken to the wrong houseboat by a rival of the man with whom we had reservations. Now, maybe things would have been better if we had gone to the right place. Maybe they wouldn’t. There were bugs in our food one night. We pointed it out to a servant. He beat the cook. I saw, and thought it quaint, the same cook fishing from the window of the houseboat and throwing his catch into the sink. Except, it turns out, that there is raw sewage dumped into the lake, and he wasn’t washing his hands between fishing and cooking. So everyone got sick. I got so sick that I can’t remember several days of the trip. Apparently, I was delirious from fever. I remember getting sick. I remember getting well. I don’t remember in between. By the time we had been on vacation a couple of weeks, I think that what we had anticipated, and what actually happened, had diverged so far from each other that we were just stunned. About 100 times worse, this is the feeling I imagine the disciples were experiencing. If you travel to a strange country, your doctor and the state department will have warnings for you. And you may believe them, or not, but you may still be surprised when they come to pass.

 

Jesus told the disciples what was going to happen, and still they were surprised and stunned. People just like them had cooperated with the authorities to execute their leader as a criminal. So they were scared to go out, scared of their neighbors, scared of the religious and civil authorities who had killed Jesus. At this point, according to John, only Mary had seen Jesus risen. She told them, but I can’t imagine in their condition they got too excited. Would you believe it? I wouldn’t.

 

Then, of course, he turns up. In the room with the doors locked. The dead person. And he says, instead of a well-deserved condemnation, “Peace be with you.” Why? Because they all deserted him, or almost all. Or denied him. Or betrayed him. If you extend beyond the disciples, there would be even more reasons for Christ to have something other than this to say. “Peace be with you.” Not, “Man, are you going to get it in the neck now. Don’t you know who I am, Pilate? Do you know who you’re messing with?” That would be the Hollywood version. Jesus has a miraculous escape, against all the odds, and then it’s payback time!

 

Jesus comes back, but he still has the wounds on him. There’s a story about a man, Martin of Tours… (Tell story.) I want to say something about his wounds… Suffering is something that, to varying degrees, we all undergo. The point of Jesus Christ’s suffering is not that it was the most excruciating ordeal that anyone has ever undergone. It was terrible, and it lasted for several hours, but it is not reasonable or necessary for us to say that he suffered more terribly than anyone else ever. That’s not the point. The point is that his suffering is on our behalf, that in some sense it is as a result of who we are, that it is in obedience to God, and that through it, God accomplishes our deliverance from the condemnation of sin and death. That he still bears the wounds of his ordeal does not cripple him. Rather, it identifies him to us, much as we know one another not just by appearance, but also by shared experiences and a common story. This is just one way to look at this story, and not even the only one.

 

The disciples are understandably excited to see Jesus. The he says it again: “Peace be with you.” And adds: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” What is the peace he offers them? What is the peace we offer one another? I think sometimes, we assume that it’s some kind of non-chemical anti-anxiety drug. There’s a hymn written by William Alexander Percy that says, though, “The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife closed in the sod.” I suspect that is closer to the truth.

 

Then he says, and note that this is not a request, but a statement, and a command. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” So this is a command that sends the disciples out, beyond the room where they’ve been holed up, and even beyond being students of Jesus. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” How did the Father send Jesus? And how, then, do disciples of Jesus become Apostles, the ones who are sent?

 

Then he breathes on them, deliberately evoking the story of Creation, which of course John does even at the beginning of this Gospel. Christ is, then, re-creating Creation. Just as the wind from God moved over the waters at the Creation, so the breath of the risen Son of God consummates the New Creation. The key tools that the disciples will have, as they go forth in the Spirit, are the capacity, in Jesus Christ, to forgive or to retain sins. This capacity is not a privilege, nor is it a cause for pride in ourselves. It is a gift, a burden, a command, a duty, and the only way that we can ever hope to do it wisely is in the Holy Spirit.

 

So, here are your three easy steps.

 

Step one. Receive Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Step two. When you see a sin, name it as such.

Step three. If the sinner admits as much (whether it’s you or someone else) and repents, forgive said sinner.

 

If the sinner either doesn’t admit to the sin, doesn’t believe it’s a sin, or admits to the act, but not that it’s a sin, then condemn that person. That person’s sin is retained, and of course it’s your prerogative to have done it. Jesus said so. Of course, this can never be YOUR sin, because if it was, you’d admit it, repent, and be forgiven. So it’s always someone else, which is both a serious responsibility and, if it’s someone you don’t like, also fun and satisfying.

 

A question, of course, is whether this is an accurate way to portray sin and that ministry of forgiveness or retention of sins. Let’s take an example or two. First, a relatively simply one. A college kid copies part of a paper she’s writing from a source and pretends it’s her own writing. The professor recognizes it as someone else’s writing and confronts the young woman. She admits her wrong doing. The professor, because of the circumstances (first offence, first year in school, parents have been getting a divorce, name your own mitigating factors…) decides to let the woman rewrite the paper, but with the stipulation that she can’t get higher than a D.

 

Or maybe the same scenario, with the young woman a senior, who has had several warnings for this type of thing. Maybe at that point, the professor might choose to “retain” her sins. He might choose to bring the matter before a dean for disciplinary proceedings, with a view toward expelling the student. Either situation fits our three easy steps, plus the bonus option of condemnation, or retention, of sins.

 

Here’s my problem with this. I’m not sure why Jesus is required for any of this situation I’ve described above. I can see where his teachings might be helpful, but there are other teachers who could deal with this situation as well. How is it that Jesus Christ makes us able to deal with sin in a way that we were unable to do apart from his life and teachings, his suffering, his death, and his resurrection?

 

I’m glad you asked.

 

First, God declares unilaterally that we are no longer, by virtue of Jesus Christ’s obedience, liable for condemnation due to our disobedience. In other words, God pronounces a general amnesty for all people in all times and places. Now, for some people, this understanding produces a general sense of relief. Others don’t understand why they should care, because they don’t “sin,” either because they don’t believe in sin, or because for some reason they no longer think they do it.

 

A biblical sense of sin, however, does not simply convict the perpetrator. It holds, to some degree, every person in some way involved to be in bondage to sin, not just the “perpetrator.” For instance, a person commits a murder. Without getting into too much detail, we could describe the killing not just as simply “criminal and victim,” but as a vast system of circumstances where the act we condemn is brought about by webs of events and actions generations old, and the crime also has consequences that go on for generations after it is done. There is the immediate act to deal with, as a citizen or as a person of faith, but there is also a sense that we are called to understand actions and events in a historical context, and also to anticipate what might occur in our future as a result of our current circumstances and behavior.

 

An analogy that might be helpful is this: we exist and are affected by sin in much the same way that we exist and are affected by our ecosystem or environment. It is not so much that God is blaming us as that God recognizes that sin affects everyone living, though in different ways. Freeing us from sin is like freeing us from pollution. Someone may be the factory owner who ignores the dirt, some might be the employee who needs the work, but helps with the pollution. Another might be the innocent neighbor downwind of the factory. Another might be a government official who knows about the problem but does nothing, or a citizen advocate who blows the whistle on the whole situation. The fact remains: you can punish those responsible, but to a certain extent, there is a continuing effect. “The sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons.” It’s not that God’s not fair. It’s a statement of fact, not an attempt to blame or punish.

 

Where does this command to forgive or to retain sins work, then? It works, first, not just through individual followers, but through the entire body of the faithful. There is a reason we confess weekly in our worship. It is because we continue our participation, even unconsciously, in the sins of our ancestors. It is because we continue our participation, even unconsciously, in sins that will affect our own children. Not always as perpetrators, but as often as bystanders or as the ones afflicted by sin.

 

Forgiveness, or retention, of sins is a prophetic act. By this I mean to say that forgiveness or retention of sins points out a point of disobedience or imbalance, and demands that we begin, even when it is seemingly impossible and likely painful, to restore the divine balance of Creation. When the universe was created, all things were good and acted in obedience to God. Only we are capable of real disobedience within God’s ecosystem. After millennia of human history, we still struggle with the same difficulties, personal and societal. Is there any doubt, with this truth in mind, that it will take more than we are capable of to restore us to love and peace with one another and with God?

 

And so we are presented with Jesus Christ, who, bearing the wounds of our sin, offers peace instead of condemnation- and commands that we do on his behalf what he did on behalf of the Father. That is, go into the world and teach the way of the Kingdom, which is justice, but also forgiveness; mercy, but also truth-telling; personal salvation, but also responsibility and duty to those around us. Three step programs are tempting, because they reduce our situation to manageable pieces. All we need to do is act right and convince others to do the same, or write them off. But these programs also, as all quick fixes do, deceive us into thinking that we can fix ourselves if we only figure out the right technique. A wounded Savior is the principal, but not by any means the only, evidence that this is simply not true. And he is also the only way by which anything we do can begin to bless people as much as our sin has burdened them. We can’t forgive sin in three easy steps, but we can, because Jesus has freed us from bondage, begin to live together in ways that will undo what we and others have done.

 

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