John 20:19-23 – 5/24/2026 – Day of Pentecost
When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “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.”
John 20:22-23 (NRSVue)
Today’s text comes from the celebration of the gift of the Holy Spirit given after Jesus’s Resurrection and Ascension on the day of Pentecost. The gift of God’s presence in the Third Person of the Trinity replaces that of the physical presence of the human Christ. Though Jesus was taken from the disciples, God did not abandon them. With each believer having unmediated access to God’s presence through this Spirit, God can work through the Church everywhere there the people of God take the Good News.
Of all the gifts the Holy Spirit bestows on the baptized, of all the actions of the Spirit in our lives, the one noted in today’s reading is rarely invoked in the theologies of Protestants. The power to forgive or “retain” sins is granted by Jesus along with the gift of the Spirit. Giving this a Protestant reading, it means that all the baptized, in virtue of their being imbued with God’s indwelling Spirit, have this power. Granting forgiveness of others’ sins is not only for the clergy, not just for Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons. The Spirit is given generously and so is our prerogative to grant forgiveness of sins to others on our whim.
What this implies about salvation is outside of most mainstream accounts of salvation in any Christian theology, Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox. It implies that the question of who is “saved,” whose sins are forgiven, is up to us, has something to do with our action, our will, our choice to grant forgiveness. It also implies that we are partners with God in God’s action of saving the world. Lest this violate Lutheran theology, all of this action is a result of God’s gift of the empowering Spirit and not by own independent volition or effort. Nevertheless, we cannot evade our responsibility to confer God’s great mercy to human beings in virtue of our very lives, our willingness to be agents of that forgiveness.
Partnership with God in renewing creation to harmonious, prosperous peace for all, that is our privilege, our vocation, our joy, our right, and our responsibility. The world does not depend on us. But our love for the world can change it, starting with our power to forgive, to renew relationships, and to make the community a welcoming place for all.
Dionysus on a Bike 
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