The Forgiveness of Sins

The New Revised Standard Version Jesus Appears to the Disciples

Jesus Appears to the Disciples

(Lk 24:36–43; 1 Cor 15:5)

19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

The Sacrificial System

To talk about forgiveness of sins, we have to look back at the sacrificial system of the Hebrew people. The Torah, the first five books of the Scriptures, lays out a system of law and penance that the Hebrew people worked within as they sought after God. Sacrifice of an animal to mark a celebration or atone for a wrong was a normal part of ancient near-eastern culture. To sacrifice meant to give up something precious and valuable to you in order to please the gods and symbolize your repentance.

The system started with the simplicity of sacrifices made in the home, rituals of repentance on smaller scales, but quickly grew into elaborate practices that corresponded with the seasons of the year and the cycle of religious life. If you read through the books of the law, you begin to experience the depth of what the Hebrew people understood about how important sacrifice and atonement was — this was what brought us back to God.

And to understand Christ and his life, death, and resurrection, we also have to look at this sacrificial system. Not because we belong to it still (it is undone and replaced by the power of Christ’s death of the cross), but because it is what lingers in our minds as humans who expect there must be an atonement for wrongdoing.

We see the vestiges of the sacrificial system in the way we understand criminal justice in our world. We expect that a wrongdoing warrants a consequence — in some ways our nation even seems to think that sacrifice is still ok as we sanction the death penalty. Under the surface of this is a sense that crimes, brokenness, sin, disunity — they must be paid for.

That is why the message of forgiveness is so radical — because it calls for another way.

Lent and Letting Go

In the season of Lent, we hear that it is time for us to give something up. We fast from coffee or alcohol or we refrain from eating meat on certain days of the week. This is a helpful thing — we learn to give up things we may take for granted or struggle to control in our lives or perhaps need to change in their priority for us.

What I don’t think we often consider is that Lent can also (and should also) be a season where we release the sins we hold inside us. What I mean is, Lent must be a season where we learn to forgive and put it into practice.

We’ve seen some heartening stories in the news of Russian soldiers on the frontlines being captured and spared by their Ukrainian counterparts. Soldiers fight with great allegiance to their cause, but in the face of the atrocities of war, we are seeing that break down. And these are perfect opportunities for us to consider the power of forgiveness. We know it in our gut — forgiveness is not the first choice we are likely to make when someone breaks down our buildings, kills our families, and storms onto our land. But grace and forgiveness can be the response when we acknowledge our shared humanity and see that the other, even as horrific as their crimes may be, is a human being and bears the image of God — this is the whole point of forgiveness. To See and be Seen. For God to see us, for us to see the other — we forgive and we put our trust in this forgiveness.

So, I believe in the forgiveness of sins.

What does it mean for us to believe this? The language of belief can be so mental, so I want to say this differently, for our consideration today. I believe in the forgiveness of sins — yes. How about this: I practice among others and receive for myself the forgiveness of sins.

I

Forgiving Others

Forgiving Yourself

Accepting Forgiveness/Grace

Extending Forgiveness/Grace

I believe in the forgiveness of sins.