Then he took a deep breath and breathed into them. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” he said. “If you forgive someone’s sins, they’re gone for good. If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?” – John 20:22-23

Back when we lived in Brandon, Florida, Rebekah’s colleague Tim Black used to call the week after Easter Sunday “National Associate Pastors’ Day.” It was a joke, of course, commenting on the tendency of many senior pastors to skip town and leave the preaching to someone else on staff.

Often, after the intensity and excitement of Holy Week and Easter, it’s not just senior pastors who disappear the following week. Attendance trends down and for some it is the beginning of other priorities on a Sunday morning.

But my thinking is exactly opposite. If Easter is such a great experience then why be anywhere other than back in church the next week?

Rebekah, rather than taking it down a notch in the pulpit, delivered a passionate and enthusiastic message that I wish thousands of people could have heard.

She talked about how Jesus literally breathed the Holy Spirit into the disciples, and she made some great observations around the importance and the power of forgiveness. Not that Jesus gives his followers the authority to withhold God’s forgiveness (“Sorry, Bob, but I’ve decided you won’t be going to heaven…”) but that he reminded them – reminds us – of the power unforgiveness has over our own souls.

This is where Peterson’s translation is so helpful: “If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?”

Unforgiveness holds no power over others, but it can – and will – do a number on us.

What are we going to do with those sins… transgressions… behaviors we refuse to forgive? They become like so many stones in our backpack, weighing us down and darkening our souls. But – with the Jesus quality of love – we can live in freedom and in joy.

Peace – every day and in every way – DEREK