It's still Sunday. A lot has happened today. One could forget that it was only the day before yesterday that Jesus was crucified.
Now that the risen Jesus has appeared to them, the disciples are happy. Happy for him, that is. Inside themselves there is still a certain heaviness, shame. One of their own had betrayed Jesus. All of them had left him at his arrest. Peter had denied him three times. And hardly any of them had been with Jesus when he died. They feel pain of failure, sin, and the guilt that goes with it.
But when Jesus breathed forth his Spirit, you could sense a great weight being lifted from all of them. They feel like lepers suddenly made clean. God-life does that to a person.
You watch this happen, and then you hear Jesus send them out to bring his forgiveness to others.
You realize that this is what Jesus came to do. The forgiveness of sins isn't a sideline for Jesus, something that interrupts his main agenda. It is his main agenda.
Before Jesus leaves, you take him aside and talk to him about your own struggle with sin.
- Little White Book, Diocese of Saginaw