If one takes an objective view of the last 2000 years and particularly the last century,
Jews certainly have had a lot more to fear from Christians than Christians have had to
fear from Jews.  In fact, the very Gospel that we are reading from, St. John’s Gospel, has
been used as a terror text against Jews.  Frequently in places like Russia and Germany,
there would be killings of Jews near Good Friday because of passages in the Passion
narrative, especially from John’s Gospel.  
 
Now, violence against Jews justified on St. John’s Gospel, like all violence, was a lunatic
reading of the text. Jesus is a Jew, the disciples are Jews, the mother of Jesus is a Jew,
and the beloved disciple was a Jew. Every hero in the story is a Jew, and yet these
words—“the doors were shut for fear of the Jews”—misused through the centuries, fall
on our ears as harsh and strident.

 
Having said all of that, I want to state that the text has a profound ring of truth to it if you
make what I believe is a valid translation: “The doors were shut for fear of those who had
married faith with political power.”  Is this a valid reading?  Well it could not have been
their race or ethnicity that scared the disciples; after all, they shared the same race and
ethnicity.  It was not the religion of the Jews that was scary because the disciples woke up
and said the same “Shema Israel” that their fellow Jews said. 
 
What they feared was the marriage of Ciaphas and Pilate, the mingling and mixing of
religion and political power.  When religion and political power get chummy, like the
high Priest and the Roman Governor, or the Reich Bishop and Hitler, there is a cross, or
an oven, or prison just around the corner.  
 
The marriage is dangerous.  Faith must always be in such a place of differentiation that it
can speak truth to power and not get absorbed into the powers and principalities of this
world. 
 
Jesus shows those frightened of faith-based initiatives, such as the crucifixion, that there
is really something to be afraid of. “He showed them his hands and his side.”  Faith and
politics are dangerous bedfellows and that is why our founding fathers took such pains to
build constitutional walls.  They knew their Bibles and they knew their history.  Jesus got
pinned down on a cross, and he got butchered in his side. That is real.  The faith-based
initiative and the marriage of religious and political power is real.  He does not talk his
disciples out of their fear; he gives the perspective on it. He shows us his hands and his
side because resurrection is not the denial of reality; it is a God’s eye view of reality. 
 
After showing and telling, he breathes on them.  I think his wounds speak his humanity
but his breath is of God.  The Hebrew word would be ruach.  It is more than a
resuscitating kiss of life. This is a wind from God sweeping over fear-possessed disciples
and creating out of fear-filled nothingness something called an apostle.  These newly
created apostles are given a profound power—the power to forgive.  They get to do the
most important thing he did and that is to forgive.  “Whose sins you forgive they are
forgiven.”
 
Not many months ago it was announced that South Africa was to host the World Cup,
which is an even better known event than the Kentucky Derby.  Thousands of South
Africans were waiting in a crowded stadium for the official word.  After the
announcement, the throng erupted into dancing and singing.  Miracle of miracles, on the
stage dancing and clapping was Bishop Tutu, and Nelson Mandela. Former Prime
Minister De Klerk, the man who had kept Mandela in prison and aimed water cannons at
Tutu, joined them in a dancing embrace of joy. That is not the miracle. Tutu did not
marry religion and power; in the power of faith, he overcame the politics of apartheid. 
And in the process, through the power of the Spirit, he unleashed the re-creating breath of
truth telling and forgiveness that has been the transformation of a people.  In the power of
Christ’s love, Tutu and Mandela let forgiveness reign.
 
I have seen men and women forgive adultery; I have seen daughters forgive their father’s
incest; I know a priest who has forgiven the murderer of her daughter and pleaded for his
life to be spared.  I know a son who has forgiven his father’s manipulative control of
every aspect of life by the pulling of financial strings.  I know of the wartime Bishop of
Singapore, who forgave the Japanese commander of the prison where he was tortured and
then baptized and confirmed him.
 
The Church of Pentecost is a church of forgiveness.  The strategy of Easter is the strategy
of mercy.  The world is renewed not by vengeance but by forgiveness.  The greatest
power is the power to forgive.  
 
For those baptized, confirmed, and received today I bet if you are honest it will not take
you long to think of someone who needs your newfound or newly reclaimed power to
forgive.  Perhaps you need to forgive someone very close to you.  Try it.  Perhaps you
need to forgive the church, too married to power or patriarchy or politics to give you the
space and permission to be that new creation that the breath of God makes you to be.  
 
Perhaps you need to show your wounds to Jesus, who refuses to hide his wounds from us,
not so that you can mingle pathos but so your truth and his truth can mingle and be
cooled in the transforming breeze of recreating mercy.  Then you can move on and move
out to forgive and release captives, even if that captive is your own wounded self. The
great thing about forgiveness grounded in truth is that both the forgiver and the one
forgiven get released.
 
On the news last week I heard of a Baptist Church in North Carolina where the preacher
and the deacons kicked out all the Democrats.  I don’t fear any Jews (except for a few
extremist settlers on the West bank) but I fear all religion based on the marriage of Pilate
and Caiaphas.  I don’t want a church that marries political power as did the Dutch
Reformed Church in South Africa or the State Church in Germany.  I want Tutu’s
Church, a church that knows a power above all power.  I want a church that can speak
truth to political power.  I want a church that knows truth, and knowing truth can minister
mercy and forgiveness when it is needed.
 
For those of you being confirmed today, no matter what fear is locking you up Jesus says,
“Receive the Holy Spirit to forgive.” Now go out and in the power of reconciling love
transform this church and this increasingly merciless world.  Guess what? Whose sins
you forgive, they are forgiven!!!! Amen