To listen to the sermon delivered by The Reverend William Kruse at the 10:45 AM service on March 30, 2008 click here

St. Charles’ Episcopal Church – St. Charles, IL

The Second Sunday of Easter, Year A - March 30, 2008

Acts 2:14a,22-32; 1 Peter 1:3-9 ; John 20:19-31 ; Psalm 16

The Reverend William Kruse

Well the Gospel lesson this morning gives us a very provocative picture of the risen Lord’s first appearance to the disciples. It’s the third day after the crucifixion (it isn’t the Sunday when Doubting Thomas was there). It’s that first Easter Sunday. Friends of Jesus are huddled together in this upper room and they are scared stiff. Why? Well, part of it can be that if Jesus of Nazareth, who so many people believed was the Messiah, if he could be arrested and beaten and knocked and spit on and finally crucified, what would happen to his friends, those who were his supporters and disciples? That’d be one reason why they are kind of scared in this upper room. Another reason is that, some of them, most of them, will feel guilty because they ran away from Jesus almost as soon as he was arrested. They were scared, they couldn’t be found. Is he going to forgive them for betraying, not betraying, but for running away from him?

But suddenly the Risen One is standing there in their midst. And solid walls and locked windows and doors don’t seem to stop him. “Shalom,” he says, “peace be with you, brothers.” And he looks at each one of their faces and there is no friendly reception here at all. They don’t seem very glad to see him. In fact, he finally realizes they don’t recognize him. So he puts his hands up and they can see the nails in his hands. Nail prints. Gradually then they begin to register hope and joy and recognition. And Jesus then says, “Hey brothers, I said Shalom! Peace be with you! What you doing here?!” And they jump up and they are hugging each other and pounding each other on the back and saying “it’s really him! I mean, he’s here! Really!” And they have a good few minutes when they can really be themselves and be joyful again. Then Jesus gets very serious again. He says, “ brothers just as the Father sent me into the world, so now I’m sending you. I’ve trained you for three years, you’re ready. I couldn’t have asked for better disciples. You did a good job as disciples, and now you carry the ministry out into the world. Who’s sins you forgive, they are forgiven. Who’s sins you retain, well, they are stuck in their sin.” But it’s surprising to me that Jesus would just give them instruction “who’s sins you forgive, they are forgiven.” All they have to do is receive the Holy Spirit and then, go out and forgive sins.

Forgiveness is, it’s a prayer, it a sign of strength, it’s a sign of love. And to borrow a phrase that Mother Theresa had, “it’s a net, in which we can catch a lot of souls, a lot of sinners”. We just finished singing in the Gloria, that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Well, how does anyone take away the sin of the world until you forgive the sinners? That’s how he takes away the sin of th world. And if you read the Gospels, you see Jesus forgiving over and over and over again. Often we think, and it’s our ministry that’s forgiveness now, but we think well, someone has to come and beg for forgiveness. Jesus didn’t wait for them to beg, he didn’t wait for them to ask. Often they were totally surprised when he’d say “your sins are forgiven you.” They didn’t come to see him for that, but he forgave them.

We all know that Jesus did a lot of teaching on forgiveness. Remember the conversation he had with Peter. Peter says “Well, how many times do we have to forgive our brother? I mean, as many as seven times?” and Jesus says “No, seventy times seven times.” You just keep forgiving. You never stop forgiveness.

He taught us to pray in the Lord’s prayer “forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us”. Another time he emphasized that same point in a different way. He said ”forgive others so your heavenly Father can forgive you.” Some people have thought, well, that’s because the heavenly Father will really get angry at us if we don’t forgive. That isn’t it, it’s not the heavenly Father will not forgive us. it’s that we, when you’re really feeling angry, when you’re judgmental, when you want to hammer someone, are you open for forgiveness? No, you are all closed up. Your mind, your body, your soul is completely closed. You’re not ready to receive forgiveness. So naturally you can’t give forgiveness. We miss out then, on the gifts the heavenly Father has for us because we’re closing ourselves down with anger and judgement instead of openness and forgiveness.

Sometimes people think that they have to forgive with their own love or their own feeling of forgiveness. That’s not it. Jesus gave us a clue about that in his own life. He said in the Gospel of John “I myself can do nothing of myself”. It’s amazing to hear Jesus say that isn’t it. “Of myself I can do nothing.” But he didn’t trust his human abilities. Or his human love. Or his human frailties. He trusted in the infinite, never-ceasing love of God within him. And that love is in us too. But we have to open ourselves to that love. We have to be willing to be overcome and over-powered by that kind of infinite love. And then we can forgive others. We don’t need to judge them.

I want to bring in one point, that someone told me I should leave out, but I’m going to put it in. I recently was listening to a neuro-physicist and neuro-biologist speaking, and she said that recent, just very recent, experimentation proves that when you forgive yourself you are promoting your own healing. That you produce molecules that promote your healing. But when you don’t forgive you don’t produce those molecules and if you are going to be healed it’s going to be a very slow process. In the same way, if you make other people realize that they are forgiven, I mean they really realize they are absolutely forgiven, they are as innocent as the day they were born, if you can make people feel that way, then they can be magnanimous. Then they want to go out and change the world, with their own love, with their own sense of forgiveness.

In our jails and prisons in this country (and we have more people in prison percentage of the population than any other nation on earth, no other nation comes close to the number of people we have locked up in prisons) but we make them feel, in that prison, that they are guilty, they are the scum of the earth. No one likes them, no one treats them well, no one honors them or respects them except the chaplain and a few prisoners, or converted, who have had a conversion experience. Well, they learn that lesson that we teach them in prison, and they go out worse than they were when they went in. But if we could teach them, if we could rehabilitate them with forgiveness and love, the whole world would be changed. That’s the idea that Jesus has here, I think, he sees that here are ten, eleven guys at this supper and they are told “who’s sins you forgive, they are forgiven” if they can have forgiveness in their heart and go out and extend that forgiveness to others, and those others extend that forgiveness to others, it just keeps going that way. Eventually the whole world is forgiven. That’s the final age, then, that’s the kingdom of God. It’s finally come. Finally consummated. When everyone realizes they’re forgiven, they’re loved. That’s what we’re heading for folks. For that final age where everyone is forgiven. Amen. Alleluia.