Last week we experienced the glory of the resurrection. Peter and John had discovered the empty tomb and Mary Magdalene met a man in the garden who she assumed to be the gardener and then recognised as the risen Christ.
This week we begin not with joy but with fear. The disciples have heard Mary’s news but they have locked themselves in because they fear what the religious authorities might do to them. It is in this context of immobilised fear that Jesus appears and brings his peace. He gives them evidence- physical evidence- of who he is and the wounds he still bears through the crucifixion. It is then that they can at last rejoice.
Of course, if the gospel story ended there none of us would be here today. The peace which they receive when they see the risen Lord is not the end of their story but the beginning of ours. Jesus repeats his message of peace and then says As the Father has sent me, so I send you’. The disciples are now to take the place of Jesus in the world; as he forgave, healed, challenged and loved the world, so the disciples are to do when he ascends to the Father. We, as the Church, the Body of Christ, are to live out the commission Christ gave to the first disciples.
As part of this commission Jesus says to them If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’. What is meant by this? It sounds like the disciples are given authority to almost take the place of God. How are we to interpret this today? Is this an authority preserved for priests in the confessional or is it something that we are all called to do? If so, is this an authority that any of us want? That any of us can bear?
Of course, in considering the nature of forgiveness we also have to consider what is meant by sin. Specifically for John sin is not about moral or behavioural misdemeanours, rather sin is more about being blind to the revelation of God in Jesus.
If we think of sin as John does forgiveness involves something very particular of us; forgiving must involve bearing witness to the identity of God as it has been revealed in Jesus Christ. At the last supper Jesus spelt out what this means when he commands the disciples to love one another as he has loved them. For “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (13.35)
We reveal God to the world around us through the love that we have for one another. This seems a far cry from the current divisions and arguments both between the churches and within them. We need only think of the difficulties within the Anglican Communion over homosexuality to realize the need to assert what is right can easily replace the call to witness to God’s love in Jesus.
We, as a Church, as a community of believers, at every level; local, national or global, are commissioned to reveal God to the world as the God of limitless love. In doing so we allow the world to choose to enter into relationship with this God of unending love.
“It is in choosing or rejecting this relationship with God that sins are forgiven or retained”. “(O’ Day. New Interpreters Bible, John p. 848)
So our mission is not to decide necessarily what is right or wrong but to bear witness to God’s love as revealed in Jesus Christ. This is where the Church might be most radical, and what distinguishes the Church from the Daily Mail or whatever other organization which believes that it can define sin or misbehaviour. We live in a world which is ridden with sin and evidence of this confronts us daily in the news; the Church’s role in this context is not simply to tell the world it’s wrong, but to offer forgiveness. This is what the Easter message is all about; for
” God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (Jn 3.17)
It is this message we, as the Church, live out in relationship to the world. To do so we need ourselves to experience God’s message of peace and forgiveness. This might come to us in a moment of revelation through which our lives are changed for good but conversion is a process rather than a one-off event. So we are continually engaged in receiving God’s peace and forgiveness. We need to expose ourselves to Christ’s peace again and again, day by day and week by week.
In this way mission is so much more, or rather goes so much deeper, than simply telling the world what Christianity is about. Mission partly involves bringing the good news of Easter to those parts of ourselves, which like the first disciples, are fearful and constrained. We have to engage with those aspects of ourselves which we find difficult before we can engage with the difficult things of our world. We have to hear again Christ’s words “Peace be with you” to be freed to serve him.
A friend of mine has recently been considering training for ordination. She spoke to me powerfully about her belief that she felt called to serve God through being a priest but she has come to realize that she can serve God in every encounter she has. Simply by loving life, loving herself and loving others she will come to fulfill God’s purposes for her. Lent is a time in the Christian calendar when we reflect upon our lives and how we serve God. Equally Easter prompts us to consider God’s commission and how we live out this call to forgive and be in peace in our daily lives.
We are equipped to do these things through Christ’s gift of the Holy Spirit and we are given a model for this Easter life in the Eucharist. It is here that we confess our sins, are absolved of our sins, and offer one another a sign of Christ’s peace. It is only at the end of the service, when all these things have happened that we can be dismissed’ or rather we are sent out into the world to love and serve the Lord’. Amen