Forgive and Remember

	Fr. Roger Vermalen Karban

The readings for Sunday, April 7, 2002, the Second Sunday of Easter, are Acts 2:42-47,
I Peter 1:3-9, John 20:19-31.

No matter the liturgical cycle, we always hear the same Gospel reading on the Sunday after Easter: John’s account of Jesus’ Easter Sunday visit to his disciples in the upper room, and his return a week later to remove the doubts of Thomas, one of his twelve. Though we usually concentrate on Thomas’ profession of faith in Jesus’ divinity (“My Lord and my God!”), the evangelist makes two points which we often overlook.

First, we must remember that there’s no “Pentecost” for John. Jesus gives the Spirit to his followers on Easter Sunday night, not fifty days later during the Jewish feast of “Weeks.” And in this pericope, the Spirit isn’t connected with the fire, wind, noise, and tongues images which Luke employs in Acts, but with the basic concept of Christian forgiveness of others. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” Jesus commands. “If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven them; if you hold them bound, they are held bound.”

We must be careful not to use these lines as a proof text for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Jesus here is speaking to his disciples. “Disciple” is a Gospel word designating someone as a follower of Jesus. All Christians are disciples. So this power to forgive isn’t something reserved to a priest in the confessional; it’s an action in which all Christians share. And it’s a sign we have Jesus’ Spirit in us.

Second, do you understand how far-reaching Jesus’ last words to Thomas are? “You became a believer because you saw me. Blest are they who have not seen and have believed.” Scripture scholars continually remind us that no one who actually saw or heard the historical Jesus (the person who lived between 6, BCE, to around 30, CE) ever wrote anything about him that has come down to us. That means none of the four Gospel authors knew him. Like the readers of his Gospel, John experienced only the risen Jesus, not the historical Jesus. We and the writers of the Christian Scriptures are in the same boat. We’re all operating from the same faith.

Each of us can apply the words of the author of I Peter to ourselves: “Although you have never seen him, you love him, and without seeing you believe in him, and rejoice with inexpressible joy touched with glory because you are achieving faith’s goal, your salvation.”

Of course, from a biblical perspective, “faith’s goal, your salvation” means much more than just getting into heaven. Otherwise the gift of a forgiving Spirit wouldn’t be so important for John. That’s where today’s Acts passage comes in.

Scripture scholars also assure us that the earliest Christian communities weren’t as lovey/dovey as Luke implies in the handful of summaries of Christian living which he inserts in the first chapters of Acts. The second half of chapter 11 of I Corinthians paints a completely different picture of community life. Luke uses these summaries as a goal for his church to achieve, not as an historical account of what actually happened shortly after Jesus’ death and resurrection. He wanted his readers one day to reach the point where they also would devote “. . . themselves to the apostles’ instruction and the communal life, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” He hoped they eventually, “. . . with exultant and sincere hearts” would take “. . . their meals in common, praising God and winning the approval of all the people.” This is one of the ways that Luke defines “achieving faith’s goal, your salvation.” It’s the right here and now work to form a Christian community around the “breaking of bread”: the Eucharist.

The clearest way we show that we believe the risen Jesus is among us is through our forgiveness of others. We can’t form a lasting Christian community without it and our celebrations of the Eucharist are just an exercise of liturgical rubrics if forgiveness isn’t an essential part of them.