Some questions about Sunday’s Lectionary. I have questions in my head about these verses from John’s gospel…
‘20:22 When [the risen Jesus] had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
20:23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”‘
One for the scholars – is there ambiguity about the translation of ‘sins’ is it possibly ‘debts’ as in other gospels?
It seems as if they are being authorised to forgive on behalf of God – is this so, in which case who is authorised, all who receive the Holy Spirit (or claim to??), those specific people, or who? Or are they to forgive on their own behalf, in which case it’s the Biblical equivalent of ‘nothing you can say that can’t be said’. If all this implies that when A sins against B, C is authorised to forgive A, that seems fundamentally unjust … even if C claims that they have received the Holy Spirit (and anyone could say they have received the Holy Spirit even when they haven’t). In my experience, one’s relationship with the Holy Spirit waxes and wanes and isn’t necessarily accompanied by spectacular stuff.
There’s nothing I can do to make it alright that some other person has abused a child or bombed someone’s mother.