by Bill Walsh
From John’s gospel on Pentecost Sunday we read that Jesus did three things when he greeted his fearful disciples in that locked room. He offered them peace. He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And then he said, “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and who’s sins you retain are retained.”
Jesus could have said, “Peace be with you” and “Receive the Holy Spirit” to the crowd of disciples all at once, but scripture also says that he breathed on them. It would be comical if he tried breathing on all of them at once, like blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. Instead, he must have slowly and deliberately moved through the gathering, talking with each person so intimately that his breath touched the person receiving his words. How comforting that moment must have been for each disciple. I can only imagine that Jesus confidently and gently extinguished the fear in that room person by person.
That moment in the locked room defined Pentecost for us. Jesus offered his disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit and God’s peace, and he wanted them to bring that peace to a world overwhelmed by the power of fear, a fear that leads to the evil of this world. We are all broken, we are all flawed, and we all need to be forgiven. Sometimes, though, we don’t think that we deserve to be forgiven. We think that our actions have been too hurtful for forgiveness. And sometimes, in our arrogance, we don’t think that we need to be forgiven, and we refuse to admit how we have failed.
Everyone needs to feel forgiven. Everyone needs to know the healing power of forgiveness that frees us from our fear. Everyone needs to be freed from the evil that we do when we don’t feel forgiven. What if Jesus wasn’t giving his disciples the authority to choose whose sins should be forgiven and whose sins should be retained? What if he was commanding them to forgive everyone, because anyone who did not feel forgiven would remain trapped in his fear? And it is fear that generates the evil in this world.
Does forgiveness have healing power? Do we trust in that power? If we do, then our evangelical calling should be to bring God’s healing power of forgiveness to everyone, because it is through forgiveness that we will come to know God’s peace. We are called to go out into the world confidently and gently offering God‘s peace to each person we meet. Maybe we are called to extinguish the fear and evil in this world by teaching forgiveness to one person at a time?
