“I forgive you,” is a powerful statement. It is a declaration which cannot be coerced, for if it is, then it no longer gives what it says. It then comes freely or perhaps out of a sense of duty or honor. It originates from deep within the one offering it. It has the power to melt the most frigid hearts, to bring comfort to the condemned, and to change the course of one’s life. But forgiveness is not the usual course of action. Perhaps, this is because it is unnatural. In a Darwinian, survival-of-the-fittest sense, what is the purpose of forgiveness? Does forgiving someone who has hurt you, wounded you, or sinned against you not just open you up to be hurt again? Does it not make more sense to hold a grudge, to keep your distance, or to cut them out of your life altogether? What would become of the great institutions of our age, the banks, the schools, the justice system, the small and large scale bureaucrats, if forgiveness became the standard operating procedure? They would collapse and fall to ruin.
Yet, there is power in forgiveness, abundant power when forgiveness is spoken into lives of great sin. We might look at forgiveness as releasing one from what is owed. An infraction or transgression has occurred, and now there must be some restitution to make things right. So, forgiveness is releasing someone from such a payment. Forgiveness, then, is more than just saying, “Don’t worry about it.” If you were arguing with your spouse and, in the heat of the moment, you said something regrettable and then apologized and she said, “Don’t worry about it,” it is quite different from, “I forgive you.” It does not feel the same. It does not hit the same way. There is something powerful about the releasing gift of forgiveness. “Don’t worry about it,” still leaves you bound-up in the guilt of what you have done. However, “I forgive you,” is a proclamation of something greater, a renewed relationship. Forgiveness is letting go of what is yours by right and, as a result, setting the one who has sinned against you free. In this sense, forgiveness is creative. It opens new worlds, breeds hope, and engenders compassion.
Forgiveness is a strange and surprising action when faced with the reality of sin, especially when the sin is not just our transgression against each other but against the divine commands of the Almighty God. The Creator of the Universe has set forth His decrees, the orders, and the patterns in which life is to be lived. To sin against Him is to forfeit life and to stand condemned for all eternity. Divine laws are met with divine justice. There must be payment, and there must be a restitution of the transgression. In this case, forgiveness is not just an act of will or a word spoken. No, it is the placing of your transgression on another. It is punishment carried out on a substitute. This means to be set free is to have another bound. To be healed is to wound another. To give life there must be a sacrifice.
Your forgiveness is not free. Your forgiveness cost God everything. Jesus would step into your place. He would drink the cup of wrath and endure the baptism of pain which rightly stood before you. He becomes a sacrifice in your place to proclaim to you this day: You are forgiven! The empty tomb and the resurrection from the dead are our assurance that the payment was received, and God’s justice was satisfied. Our hope and our assurance now rest solely in Christ our Lord. All of this flooded into the room where the first disciples hid away. The sacrifice was made, the brutality, the death, the blood and water from the side, but now what? What about their sin? What about their place before the Creator? They did nothing. They ran, hid, and denied Him. So, now what?
Well, Jesus arrives there, that first Easter day, and says, “Peace be with you.” There is extraordinary joy in these words. Jesus brings peace; peace with the Father, peace because the sacrifice was made, peace because a new life begins today, peace because the work of your salvation is finished. Punishment for the sins of mankind, retribution for your sin, for your rebellion against God has been carried out in the perfect and sinless flesh of His only begotten Son. Christ comes forth from the tomb to stand before you, victorious and risen, bearing in His body the marks of His sacrifice. However, in all of this Jesus is not saying, “Hey, don’t worry about your sin,” or, “It wasn’t that big of a deal.” No, He is there to declare peace, to declare how you are forgiven, set free because He has paid the price.
But this new thing, this new life, the new world that opens before you in Christ’s message of peace does not stop with simply receiving the Good News. No, for we read, “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I am sending you.’ And 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 withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.’” He was sent to do the work of forgiveness to suffer, die, and rise again, and so they are now sent. The disciples are sent. You are sent. You are sent to take the work He has completed and proclaim it to others. He declares that when you forgive the sins of others, they are forgiven, and if you do not do it, then they are not forgiven. This is the mission Jesus gives to His followers. It is the mission of the Church. We are the conduit between the works of Calvary and the empty tomb to the lives of the people we come across every day. And the power rests in the proclamation of forgiveness: “I forgive you!”
Of course, in our text, Thomas misses all of this. He hears them talk about seeing Jesus and how they have now have no doubt about the mission they are to carry out. But without seeing Jesus, without assurance of the resurrection, Thomas will not believe. And if he does not believe, then certainly, he will not be proclaiming forgiveness. Thomas is working out what we are all thinking. Real forgiveness needs a real payment made on your behalf. Where is the proof of the payment made? Where is the assurance that the Father has accepted the sacrifice? Where is the resurrected Christ? Well, Jesus shows up again, does He not? He arrives in their midst the following Sunday. Do you see the pattern emerging? There they are gathered together, and Jesus arrives in their midst with the same words, “Peace be with you.”
Jesus calls Thomas to faith and offers him the opportunity to see the holes in His hands and the wound in His side. However, the text never says he actually examined Him. Rather, at the call of Jesus to believe, Thomas speaks the greatest confession of his true identity in all of Scripture when he declares, “My Lord and my God.” This One standing before him, the messenger of peace, this crucified and resurrected Lord, is God Himself.
As a result, Thomas and the events around this confession are used to lead us back to the Word of God. We read, “Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’” You are the blessed ones. You are those who have not seen, not like Thomas saw, and yet you see by faith. You believe. What you have is the Word, and that is enough. As John says, “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.”
So, new life and eternal hope are given to you, to you who are blessed by God, those who have not seen and yet believe. And now you are sent; sent into the lives of one another, sent into every relationship you have ever had, sent with a message of peace. You are called to do this powerful, life-changing work for the sake of your brothers and sisters. You are sent to speak the Good News and to say, “I forgive you.” Forgiveness is our mission. It is forgiveness which flows from the cross, through the empty tomb, and now out of your mouths and into the ears of everyone you meet. I forgive you.
