A sermon by Senior Minister John B. McCall, May 11, 2008
Acts 2:1-13
John 20:19-23
You know we have four Gospels in our New Testament, each telling the Good News of Jesus Christ in a particular way for a particular audience. You know that the book we call “Acts” or “the Acts of the Apostles” is a continuation of the Gospel of Luke by the same author. And you know that Acts tells about the spread of the Gospel in the first century through the guidance of the Holy Spirit including the Apostle Paul’s missionary journeys.
As we heard just a few minutes ago, Acts chapter 2 tells that amazing experience on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit of God appeared as wind and tongues of fire resting on the disciples and empowering them to preach ecstatically in many different languages. All sorts of people from many different places could understand the Good News each in his or her own native tongue. The apostles were empowered to spread the Gospel to all the world. That’s why we call Pentecost is the birthday of the Christian Church.
But did you know there’s another story about God’s gift of the Holy Spirit to the disciples in the Gospels, as we just heard Mike read it from the 20th chapter of John? It’s easy to miss, ‘cause it’s tucked right into the middle of John’s story of the risen Christ on Easter day. It’s a simple account – only a few sentences, really – but it has a powerful message for us today. More than that, today as we celebrate the birthday of the Christian church on Pentecost, and the “Festival of the Christian Home,” and Hallmark’s greatest money-maker “Mothers Day,” this one Gospel lesson gives us the secret of a happy and fulfilling family life. Honest.
I know that claim sounds more like something from a midnight “infomercial” on TV, but this one is true…
It was Easter afternoon. All ten of the disciples were together – only Judas and Thomas were absent. They were huddled in a locked room, terrified that the Jewish authorities would find them and bring them to trial as co-conspirators. Suddenly Jesus was standing there with them. He just appeared. He didn’t open a door and walk in; he didn’t drop through the ceiling. He simply appeared. And he spoke the familiar words: “peace be with you…” We do the same as we “pass the peace” here in our sanctuary.
This Gospel account makes three things very clear:
• First, it links the Easter resurrection to the gift of the Holy Spirit. While Luke puts 50 days between Easter and Pentecost, John tells us that Jesus established the church and sent the apostles on their mission on Day One.
• Second, it draws a parallel between the creation of humankind and the creation of the church (vs. 22). In Genesis 2:7 God breathed the breath of life into Adam whom God had made from the earth. In John 20:22, Jesus breathed on the disciples and filled them with the Holy Spirit. In both Hebrew and Greek, you may recall, wind, breath and spirit are the same word: the breath of God gives life to each of us; the breath of the Holy Spirit gives life to Christ’s church.
• Third, in the Gospel of John Jesus instructs the disciples that forgiveness is the cornerstone of the church’s mission.
Understanding the power of forgiveness is essential to what it means to be the Christian community. Think about that. He could have breathed on them and said:
• “go into the world and build beautiful temples,” or
• “go into the world and create lofty liturgy,” or
• “go into the world and tell people you’re saved and they’d better follow your lead.”
According to John he didn’t do any of those things. He said: “If you forgive any sins they will be forgiven. And if you refuse to forgive any sins they are retained.” That’s the common translation including the New Revised Standard which we read most often.
These few words have been a source of great disagreement across the history of Christianity. Roman Catholics teach that forgiveness of sins comes only through the church, more specifically through ordained priests, who have been made God’s arbiters of who’s holy and who’s profane, who’s righteous and who’s not. That was a major debate at a 16th century Roman Catholic Council (Trent, 1545).
But many theologians across the years tell us this doesn’t fit in the world-view of the Gospel of John. Rather, in this act as Jesus breathed on the disciples, he gave them the Holy Spirit and the commission to continue his work in the world. [New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Volume IX, pg. 847]
And what was Jesus’ work in the world? It was the forgiveness of sins and the call to abundant life. Forgiveness is the very reason God came into the world through Jesus Christ. Earlier John says “God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but so that the world might be saved through him… those who believe in him are not condemned.” [John 3:17]
To put it another way, Jesus sought every way possible to release people from sin and to offer them abundant life. He never gave up on the sick and lost and poor and broken. He invited them again and again to experience forgiveness and the new life that opens up.
This comes alive for me in The Message Bible where Eugene Peterson says: “If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good. If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?” Jesus’ commission isn’t about our power to bless or condemn but rather our privilege of proclaiming the Good News of forgiveness through Jesus Christ.
So we can say fearlessly that forgiveness is a cornerstone of the church, a cornerstone God’s relationship with us, and a cornerstone of every healthy human relationship.
We know from experience that’s true. We know that in any relationship where one party sits in judgment there can’t be any real mutuality or health. We know that when someone watches and waits for you to mess up or fall down, waits to catch you in a sin, you can’t flourish.
Jesus said “if you refuse to forgive someone else’s sins what are you going to do with them?” If you’ve ever been forgiven for something you’ve done, you know what he meant. If you’ve ever refused to forgive someone else who’s hurt you, you know what he meant. If you’ve never forgiven yourself for some sin or shortcoming, you know what he meant. God forgives us for being human and calls us to a change of heart – to live up to the promise.
Remember the account of the woman caught in adultery and all the righteous people demanded that Jesus condemn her for her sin? He looked at the self-righteous crowd and said: “let the one among you who’s without sin cast the first stone.” And they all hung their heads and slunk away. And Jesus said to the broken woman: “does no one condemn you? Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” That’s the mission of the church and the call to discipleship.
So when Jesus said to his disciples “if you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any what are you going to do with them…?” he was instructing his disciples to spread the good news and to call people to decision. Witness to the world that there’s a way of hope and abundant life. There’s also a way of failure and death. Show them the way.
On this Pentecost Sunday, this festival of the Christian Home, this Mother’s Day, let’s be perfectly clear about just one thing: God came into the world through Jesus Christ not to condemn but to liberate; not to punish us but to love us; not to build barriers but to break them down.
And if we’re claiming to be the Church of Jesus Christ we simply must remember his call to live the forgiveness that God has shown us – patiently, persistently, and tirelessly. In my experience that’s a lot like a mother’s love, as the 19th century American author, Washington Irving, wrote:
A father may turn his back on his child; brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies; husbands may desert their wives and wives their husbands. But a mother’s love endures through all; in good repute, in bad repute, in the face of the world’s condemnation, a mother still loves on, and still hopes that her child may turn from his evil ways, and repent; still she remembers the infant smiles that once filled her bosom with rapture, the merry laugh, the joyful shout of his childhood, the opening promise of his youth; and she can never be brought to think him all unworthy.
So it is with God. This, and so much more.