The Power of Forgiveness

John 20:19-31            When 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.

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There is a scene in the film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” when the three escaped convicts run into a group of people all dressed in white, singing. 

As I went down in the river to pray studying about that good ol' way

And who shall wear the starry crown? Good Lord show me the way!

They almost look like ghosts. Slowly they walk down to the river where you see there is a preacher standing in the water, baptizing.  One by one they get dunked in the water and come out cleansed, forgiven, renewed.  Delmar, one of the convicts, gets swept up in the beauty of it and runs in to the water to get baptized too.  He comes back to the other two all dripping wet, smiling, and says “Well that’s it, boys, I’ve been redeemed! The preacher’s done washed away all my sins and transgressions.”  He says, “Including that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo.”  Ulysses says, “Delmar, I though you said you was innocent of those charges.”  “Well, I was lying,” Delmar says, “and the preacher says that sin’s been washed away too.  Neither God nor man’s got nothing on me now.”

He’s a simple-minded fellow, and after that episode he gets the mistaken impression that the law has no claim on him anymore, even though he is an escaped convict, because his sins were washed away in the river.  He’s forgiven … and he can’t understand why the lawman doesn’t get that.  Poor Delmar.  He has an oversimplified understanding of the power of forgiveness.  But at least he’s giving it it’s due.

In some way I appreciate that, because too often I find that we act as though we have evolved beyond the need for forgiveness.  We are quick to cast it aside as something too quaint for the world in which we live.  We think it foolish to forgive someone who might turn around and hurt us again.  And we think it equally foolish to admit any need for forgiveness, lest someone think us weak.

If we think about forgiveness at all, we probably think of it as something God does.  But not us, at least not when it’s too hard. 

Jesus says otherwise.

He certainly did that Sunday night in Jerusalem when he walked through the door where the disciples were hiding, scared.  It had been a ghastly weekend; they were afraid.  John blames their fear on the Jews, but I doubt that.  That’s John’s bias coming through, writing the gospel more than half a century later, at a time when Christianity and Judaism had both changed in different directions.  The disciples didn’t fear the Jews; they were all Jews.  The only reasonable fear of the Jews they might have had is that one might turn them in to the authorities out of a misguided sense of loyalty.  The real fear, for all of the Jews, was of the Romans.  It was the Romans, alone, who had the power to crucify.

But that night, beside the fear I am sure they were feeling alarm and confusion at seeing Jesus again for the first time.  The man who had been crucified three days before now appears very much alive in front of them.  They see the nail marks in his hands and the place in his side where the spear pierced him.  And he says, “Peace be with you.”

And after greeting them with peace, he says these three things to his disciples:  First, as the Father sent me so I send you.  Then, receive the Holy Spirit. And finally … about forgiveness? That ball is in your court now.

Forgiveness is in our court now.  But, man, do we find it hard to do.

We often don’t want to forgive others.  Much of the time we would rather wallow in our resentment and nurture fantasies of revenge.  Sometimes we confuse it with justice, but they’re not the same thing.  Revenge actually tastes better than justice.

Here is possibly where we see our own inherent sinful nature most clearly – when we would rather be angry than let it go and take some of that peace he offered in the upper room that night.  It would cost us nothing, but we resist making the trade anyway. 

I admit I have a whole closet full of resentments I don’t want to let go of.  I don’t do anything with them except pull one out every now and then, poke at it and remember how much it hurt when that person did that thing to me, and how angry it makes me still. 

I don’t fully understand why we resist the act of forgiveness the way we do.  But I think it is closely tied to another resistance we have: the resistance to being forgiven.

I heard an interesting comment at the sermon roundtable this week.  Even though we know Christ forgives our sins in general, we often doubt his ability to forgive our sins in particular.  Because, as in all things, when it comes down to the particular it gets messy.

For me to accept that Christ can forgive my very particular and ugly and hurtful sins, I have to face them myself.  To have my wounds healed they have to be addressed – each and every one.

In the old Star Trek TV show Bones, the ship’s doctor, had this hand-held device he could use to diagnose medical problems just by scanning the patient’s body.  No invasive procedures, no touching, even.  It was called the tricorder.  It was amazing.  I read that someone has invented a real life tricorder now, proving again that nothing is more fantastic than reality.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could have our spiritual ailments handled the same way?  The sin-sick soul receives the spiritual scan and the instant readout provides you with a list of your ailments.  All the sins you have been sitting on; all the resentment you have been holding tightly, and all the secrets you’ve been keeping for fear that your sins are actually too much for Jesus to forgive.

I wonder; would we be willing to submit ourselves to the spiritual tricorder scan for the sake of being healed? Or would we prefer to keep on holding onto these things – our secret resentments and sins – rather than risk being exposed? 

I marvel at the trade offs we humans are willing to make – to hold ourselves imprisoned in a net of sin and unforgiveness rather than trading it in for the peace he offered us.

When I worked in college ministry, the students liked to combine weekly worship with a topical discussion about all kinds of things that were meaningful to their lives.  Sometimes it was sex, sometimes it was drugs and alcohol, sometimes it was money management.  But there was one topic I found they couldn’t get enough of, and that was forgiveness.

The first time we ran a program on forgiveness we filled the room to overflow capacity.  19, 20, 21 year olds crowded in to listen and ask their questions about whether they were really forgiven; about whether they really had to forgive others (or if there was some obscure escape clause they might learn about); and then, having their suspicions confirmed that they is no escape clause, about how they could possibly forgive the ones who had hurt them.  That first time, and every time after that, there was a lot of pain in the room when forgiveness was on the table.

It doesn’t seem to matter how old you are, or how young you are; forgiveness is a hard thing.

You thought we were going to talk about Doubting Thomas, didn’t you?  There is a lot in this passage we haven’t even touched.  Forgiveness is mentioned in only 1 of the 13 verses.  And yet I think it might be the hinge on which this story turns.

It is Christ’s work on the cross that opens the door to forgiveness.  The wounds on his hands and feet and his side are the evidence of this: the evidence that there is another way.  Even though this world is full of sin – violence and anger and greed and hatred; and it is always possible to adopt the old “Eye for an eye … and then some” philosophy of life.  Even though the conventional wisdom says to live and die by the sword, to withhold love, and refuse the hand of peace to anyone who hasn’t first proved his or her worthiness to you. In spite of all this Jesus Christ, in the flesh, provides the proof that there is another way.

There is this other way, in which forgiveness is offered even before it is asked.  And that’s what his wounds signify.  So, do you believe?

Do you see the marks on his hands and side and do you believe he did it for you?  And that he did it so that you could do it too?  Christ forgives you all your particular sins, and asks you to forgive one another.  The power is in your hands.  If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven.  If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.

Do you believe that, because he did it first, you can do it too?