Easter is a season of great celebration, not just one day, but fifty days to sing and say alleluia at the news that God has brought life from death; that the powers of Sin and Death have been routed; that human history and even the destiny of the whole earth will culminate in the triumph of God.
But we are right to wonder with our brother Thomas at these things. We are right to feel fiercely a true desire to see these good things for ourselves, especially now in a time of plague, when the power of Death appears to be ascendant, and not routed at all; and when the forces of systemic racism and oppression seem to be strengthening, even spiraling; and when even the living planet itself is under existential threat.
But there is more.
The season of Easter proclaims not only that Sin and Death have been defeated, but that they have been pulled up by their very roots. In his triumph over death, Jesus has overcome the ancient human problem of sibling rivalry, the problem that has spawned all the other problems, the problem that gave rise to the powers of Sin and Death in the first place. The human race was only two generations old when sibling rivalry appeared, in the bloody story of the brothers Cain and Abel. These brothers competed with each other, perceiving scarcity where there was none, and they decided tragically that life on this earth is a zero-sum game. There are winners and there are losers. If you win, then that must mean I lose.
In the season of Easter, we are told that this oldest shackle on the human spirit has been shattered. Even in the presence of bitter human competition and conflict, life and freedom rise up, and siblings embrace in joyful unity.
And so at Easter we rejoice that death will not separate us from our beloved dead who were easy to love. And that alone is truly awesome Good News. But we also rejoice that not even our oldest conflicts and rivalries will stand when the devastating power of Resurrection puts all forces of evil to flight. There is no pattern of destructive human conflict that will survive God’s re-creation of the world: no more oppressors and victims; no more winners and losers; no more sorting people into “makers and takers,” no more warring and quarreling siblings. It seems to be stretching across a few millennia, but the healing power of Resurrection has been unleashed upon the world. It radiates outward from the Resurrection of Christ.
We see God’s re-creative, resurrecting power at work today, the Second Sunday of Easter, when we are reacquainted with Aaron, the older brother of Moses, in Psalm 133. In the story of Exodus, Aaron’s younger brother is given primacy: it will be Moses, not Aaron, who climbs the mountain to the very top, and becomes God’s close friend. Aaron will only reach the mountaintop at the moment of his own death. If we recall other siblings in our holy book — not just Cain and Abel, but also Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, the twelve sons of Jacob, and finally the disciples of Jesus who argued about who was the greatest — and if we recall our own sibling and peer relationships, we might expect that Aaron might not be very pleased when he learns that he will follow in the wake of his brother.
But he is.
Just as God predicted to Moses, Aaron rejoices at the sight of his sibling. And so, in today’s psalm, we see a moving vision: kindred living together in unity is like fragrant oil running down Aaron’s beard, and onto his collar. Fragrant oil: a precious commodity in a parched desert; the oil that Wren used just last week to anoint our newly baptized sibling, Ellie. But the fragrant oil anoints not just any beard: it is running down Aaron’s beard. “When [Aaron] sees you,” God reassured Moses, “his heart will be glad.”
This same gladness is in rich abundance inside the quiet, locked room of the disciples, even as they hide in fear from their perceived enemies. Jesus moves through their locked door with ease, and they greet him with astonishment and deep gladness. Even the latecomer Thomas, who like us was not there the first time, even Thomas is immediately evangelized by the presence of the risen Jesus, wounded but alive. And Jesus responds to their rejoicing by breathing upon them the Holy Spirit.
They are all reconciled siblings, rejoicing together in the unity created by the resurrection of their Lord.
But then Jesus does yet another startling thing. He says to his friends, “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.”
There is a lot to unpack here. Most years, this intriguing, even troubling little announcement is lost in the glare of the Thomas story. So closely do we feel Thomas’s feelings — so strongly do we share Thomas’s desire to actually grasp with certain awareness the reality of the risen Lord — that we miss this little yet enormous word from Jesus.
The news of Resurrection is not only the Good News that death has been defeated. It is not only the Good News that those we love who have died will not be separated from us. That alone is great cause for rejoicing. But it is also the Good News that we are receiving the Holy Spirit, and with the Spirit’s power, we receive the power to forgive, and to not forgive.
What could this mean?
We can unpack the meaning of this by turning once again to our sibling Aaron, who embraced his brother with love and gladness. We receive the Holy Spirit, and with the Spirit’s power, we are no longer locked into those ancient patterns of senseless conflict that have bedeviled the human race for its entire existence. Like Aaron, we can forgive our peers, our friends, our siblings; we can choose not to forgive them, too. In other words, when Jesus breathes upon us the Holy Spirit, Jesus gives us a new moral agency that is enlightened by the Resurrection itself.
It could work like this: call to mind an old rivalry in your life story. Choose one that is particularly stuck, particularly intractable. Finish this sentence: “I will probably always be in conflict with (blank).” Your mother? Your ex? One of your children? A childhood friend? Someone in your life who seems to relish conflict for its own sake? How about a coworker, or boss, or client? Maybe it’s a family member with toxic political views. Now, once you have that relationship in mind, hear again what the risen Jesus says: “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.”
Now, if I forgive the sins of any who are involved in my oldest conflicts (and that includes forgiving my own sins), that doesn’t mean I forget what happened, or rationalize it. A rotten egg doesn’t become fresh just by my proclaiming it so. (This is a particularly important point for those who have been oppressed or abused.) No, forgiveness means that I am no longer in a fixed, rigid, unconscious, powerless relationship with what happened, or with the person I’ve been in conflict with ever since. If I have the power to forgive and not forgive, I have agency: I can make conscious choices.
People often say that forgiveness is simply the brave act of giving up the hope for a better yesterday. Yes, that rings true. But the risen Christ is even more bold: in light of the Resurrection, forgiveness is embracing the hope for a better present, and looking toward an ever more glorious, just, and life-giving future. Aaron consciously chooses to look at his younger brother with love, acceptance, and true friendship. Joseph and his brother Judah struggle (with notable success!) to rebuild their family, leading their ten brothers toward a new reconciliation. The eleven disciples of Jesus who received the Holy Spirit become — alongside their sisters in the faith — apostles of a new movement, building communities where love and forgiveness bind everyone together as one Body.
In the Resurrection, God makes us conscious: God awakens us.
In the Resurrection, God makes us glad: God delights us.
And in the Resurrection, God turns us toward one another with agency, that is, with power, with skill, and with love.
This shatters our old ways. This breaks the ancient human bondage of rivalry and senseless conflict. It is not easy; forgiveness is rarely a breeze. Sometimes it does not happen; other times, it happens, but the relationship stays broken, because that is what’s best. In all of this, the risen Jesus shows us the Way.
Confronted with this new reality, we may share Thomas’s initial disbelief, his fervent desire to see it for himself. But like him, with God’s help, we will gather here at Grace Church, again and again, and we will see for ourselves what a community of justice and forgiveness looks like.
Like Thomas, we may simply widen our eyes and shout out: “My Lord and my God!”
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Preached on the Second Sunday of Easter (Year B), April 11, 2021, at Grace Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Acts 4:32-35
Psalm 133
1 John 1:1-2:2
John 20:19-31
Artwork: He Qi, The Appearance of Christ to Thomas