“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.’”   (John 20: 21-23)

When it was announced that a NAVY SEAL team had found and killed Osama bin Laden, I felt more than a bit of relief and satisfaction.  There was a feeling that justice had been done on the behalf of all those innocent people he had helped kill, not just on 9/11, but in many other terrorist attacks around the world.  At the same time, I was taken aback by the gleeful celebration and pronouncements of some Americans that reflected more a thirst for revenge and a need for blood, than justice.  Justice or revenge, too often the difference gets blurred.

At the same time that this event was being repeated over and over again by the media, I saw a part of a documentary about the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda, and the continued difficult work of reconciliation and forgiveness there.  In 1994, in the short space of 100 days, 800,000 Rwandans were killed, mostly Tutsis, by the Hutus.  Rwanda is a country that is over 90% Christian!  Yet neighbor killed neighbor, and churches, instead of being sanctuaries, became sites of massacres.     

Before becoming too sanctimonious, we forget at our peril that our own Civil War, with over 618,000 dead, was more than all who have died in all of the other wars fought by our country from the Revolutionary War to today! 

How hard it is to receive the peace of Christ into our own lives, let alone work for God’s Peace in the world.  You and I, sisters and brothers in Christ, have been called, sent, and equipped with the Holy Spirit by Jesus Christ to continue God’s ministry of reconciliation and forgiveness in the world!  How hard it is to continue the work, the ministry that Jesus has sent us to do, with the power of the Holy Spirit, to forgive sins.  It is an awesome responsibility and privilege, to forgive people their sins in Jesus’ name.  What a blessing to proclaim to people seeking forgiveness, “In the name of Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven!”  

But Jesus shows that there is another option – to not forgive sins, but to retain them, which literally means “to hold.”  By not forgiving, it is not only the person who committed the sins, or who is stuck in sin, that holds onto sin, it is the person who will not forgive that also holds onto the sin.  This does not mean we should not expect repentance, confession, or remorse; it does however require us to look at our hidden intentions and attitudes behind our own “holding onto” sin, even if it is the sins of another.  It seems that when forgiveness is withheld, and sins are held onto, there is no forgiveness for anyone.

Go, as Jesus said, forgive the sins of anyone and everyone who is held by the power of sin, or who are holding onto sin, and in the process don’t you hold onto sin either, their sin or your own.  Instead, hold onto Jesus Christ and the power of forgiveness!