Peace Be With You: Love and Forgive

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
May 24, 2026
Pentecost, A
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:25-35, 37
John 20:19-23

“Peace be with you,” Jesus said to his disciples when he appeared to them after being resurrected. Jesus had been killed. In the process of being killed, he prayed God to forgive those who were killing him. Then after being dead from Friday afternoon to Sunday morning, Jesus was raised from the dead, appeared to his disciples, and said, “Peace be with you.” 

He could have gone with, “Hey guys, I’m back. That death thing that the Romans did to me, it didn’t really take, so let’s go bust them up now,” but no. Jesus let them know that the whole forgiveness thing that he prayed as he was being killed, he really meant it. They tried to kill Jesus, very ineffective; it didn’t really last, but the forgiveness, that part stuck. 

“Peace be with you,” Jesus said, followed closely by, “Forgive.” Jesus’ last command to his disciples before he was killed was to love, and his first command to his disciples after he was resurrected was to forgive.

Love people and forgive people. “As the Father has sent me, so do I send you,” Jesus said. Jesus was sent to love and to forgive, so he told his Church, to love people and forgive people. In the upper room where he had had his last Passover meal with his disciples, he appeared among them and breathed on them saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” He sent them as he had been sent, to heal the hurts of the world through God’s love and forgiveness. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit for the whole Church to continue his work of healing the hurts of the world through God’s love and forgiveness.

Now, when he commanded his disciples to forgive on that first Easter day, he seemed to know exactly how hard it can be to forgive others, and so he reminded them of how harmful and damaging it can be to hold on to someone’s sins and not forgive. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them,” he said, “if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” At first listen and with centuries of church practice under our belts, it may sound like Jesus was giving certain people in the church the power both to forgive people’s sins and to hold people’s sins over their heads and prevent God from forgiving them. 

“If you retain people’s sins, they are retained” may sound like “if you don’t forgive people, God won’t forgive them,” but that’s not the case. Look at Matthew 6:9-15, where Jesus taught his disciples to pray what we call “The Lord’s Prayer.” He taught them to ask for forgiveness in as much as we forgive others. “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Our prayer is that if we do not forgive others, we are asking God not to forgive us. In fact in Matthew 9:15, Jesus said just that. If we do not forgive others, neither will God forgive us. 

So, “if you retain the sins of any, they are retained,” means just that. If you hold on to the sins of others and don’t forgive them, then you truly have held on to them, and they will be yours to deal with. Those sins that you hold onto will be yours to fester and rot within you. What happens when we hold on to people’s sins? Aside from festering rot, we get resentments. We get anger and hate. Resentments against people have best been described as drinking poison, hoping the other person will die. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. If you choose to drink the poison of resentment, hoping to kill your enemy, then yes, you really will be harmed by drinking that poison. If you choose to hold on to people’s sins and not forgive people, then yes, God will hold on to your sins and forgive you just as much or as little as you have forgiven others. If you retain the sins of any, they will be retained, and you will be stuck with their sins, rather than with new life of love and forgiveness.

So, Jesus was warning his disciples of the great harm that is caused by not forgiving others. Heal the hurts of the world by love and forgiveness. That is Jesus’ mission for his church. That is the reason he sent the Holy Spirit to strengthen us and guide us, so that we could share with others God’s love and forgiveness, just as Jesus did.

We are a people of resurrection life, and that resurrection life is lived through love and forgiveness. Not an easy task, and not for only a select few.

When the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples at Pentecost, what we call the birth of the church, they suddenly began speaking in many different languages so everyone who was there heard and understood exactly what they were saying. Jesus’ mission of love and forgiveness wasn’t only for one particular group of people. God’s love and forgiveness are for all nations, all tribes, all peoples. God’s love and forgiveness are for every human being, ever.

That sounds great until we each get to the people we are quite certain do not deserve God's love and certainly don’t deserve God’s forgiveness. The best we can do with some of those people is, “Well God, you may love and forgive them, but I certainly never will.” 

Living and sharing God’s love and forgiveness with others may be one of the hardest things we will ever do. In fact living and sharing God’s love and forgiveness is pretty much beyond most of us or all of us in those really difficult situations, so Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit. We don’t have the strength on our own to live and share God’s love and forgiveness, and we aren’t meant to do it alone. We live and share God’s love and forgiveness with the strength and guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

Perhaps that’s part of why Jesus’ first words to his disciples after he was resurrected were, “Peace be with you.” This is a monumental task I’m about to give you to do, but you won’t be doing it alone. So “peace be with you.” “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Peace be with you. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” so that you may live and share God’s love and forgiveness with others. Peace be with you. Do not drink the poison of resentment, certain that you are right and they don’t deserve forgiveness. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but you will all suffer if you hold on to those sins and drink that poison. The world will suffer if you hold on to one another’s sins and drink that poison, so forgive. 

As Jesus’ church, we get to love and forgive. Let Jesus worry about whether or not someone deserve love and forgiveness. Love people and forgive people. That is the way of the church. When you know you can’t love and forgive someone, that’s when you know the Holy Spirit is saying to you, “Peace be with you. Now, breath me in, and let me do what you can’t.” Receive the Holy Spirit, breath it in, and then love people and forgive people.