19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."Summary
I explore the text, focusing on the risen Lord's appearance to his disciples and the subsequent gift of the Holy Spirit. I interpret his breathing of the Spirit through creation theology, promise-fulfillment logic, and missional necessity that energizes believers beyond human capacity. This results in an integrated view of the Spirit as life-giving, teaching, empowering, and authorizing proclamation. This event, presented as John’s version of Pentecost, emphasizes the deepening of faith and the apostolic commission, empowering the disciples for their mission. This approach integrates pneumatology with mission. I have a high Christological focus. Christ is the initiator of revelation, underscoring Johannine theology in which resurrection appearances are divine self-disclosure rather than human discovery. I trace this from the tomb to the gathered disciples.
Despite their initial fear and disbelief after Jesus's crucifixion, the disciples receive peace, a physical manifestation of the Risen Lord, and the Spirit, enabling them to forgive sins and continue Jesus's work in the world. I root forgiveness in the cross, explore authority as communal and missional, and distinguish early Christian practice of baptism from later penitential rites. This transformation represents their "second act."
I then parallel this spiritual renewal with the human experience of finding new purpose. Drawing on F. Scott Fitzgerald's notion of "no second acts in American lives," I argue that while past defining moments linger, life often offers second chances. Examples like Danny DeVito, Whoopi Goldberg, and Colonel Sanders illustrate how individuals, much like the disciples, can embark on new journeys, finding true direction and fulfilling their life's mission, often after initial struggles or unexpected turns. This suggests that the path to joy and satisfaction is often a long and winding one, ultimately leading to an "other-centered" life driven by commitment and renewed energy.
Introduction
The purpose of the segment is to deepen faith in Christ. This segment contains John’s version of Pentecost, his vision of apostolic authority, and Thomas. It expands on the astounding events of Easter Sunday. The risen Lord creates the encounter, the moment, that becomes discloses him to be the Revealer. The Revealer began at the tomb and progressively is the Revealer in the various encounters through which John brings us.
Verse-by-verse study
We begin with the Revealer coming to ten of the disciples (verses 19-23, see Luke 24:36-43), minus Judas and Thomas. The motif of the missionary charge of the risen Lord dominates here.[1] Along with the apostolic commission and the gift of the Spirit is an emphasis upon the administration of church discipline.[2] The risen Lord comes to them on Sunday evening, symbolizing the darkness that had descended upon the minds of the disciples. Their fear of Jewish leaders, who had just conspired to kill Jesus, made them meet behind closed doors. Although they have the witness of Mary Magdalene having seen the risen Lord, they remain hidden and fearful. The risen Lord is a physical presence, for Mary had grabbed him, but the risen Lord is not limited by time and space, so he appears to them and brings a word of peace (shalom), the standard Jewish greeting, fulfilling the promise in 14:27. Focusing upon the physicality of the risen Lord, he shows them his hands and side. Their response involves a movement from fear and dread to joy that they also see the risen Lord, fulfilling the promise of 16:20-22. They interpret the appearance of the risen Lord against the background of the eschatological expectation of a resurrection from the dead. The same will be true in the appearance to Thomas.[3]The risen Lord offers the Jewish greeting of peace. Of theological significance is saying that Christ breathed the Holy Spirit upon them (20:22, fulfilling the promise in 14:26, 15:25-27, 16:7b-11, 12-15), as the Lord breathed into Adam the gift of life (Genesis 2:7) and told them to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. To accomplish the mission, the Son has given them, they will need energy from beyond their individual capacity. They need the Spirit, the Advocate, for it is the Spirit that gives life, teaches them all things. The Eleven represent all believers. Spirit here is the power of proclamation that leads to the knowledge of Jesus as Life, Light, and Truth, which gives the proclamation its authority.[4] The word of peace opens the portal to a new age of the Spirit, for as the Father sent the Son, so the Son is sending them, recognizing that the relation of the Son with the Father is one he can share with his followers.[5] Here is the common calling of all Christians to continue the mission of Jesus in witness to the lordship of God. This saying is true for all disciples of Jesus.[6] Jesus entrusts the disciples with the same mission the Father had given him. The risen Lord bestows upon the disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit, foreshadowed 19:30 as he handed over his spirit, the glorified and exalted Jesus presented as the one from whom the Spirit will come.[7] The imparting of the Spirit takes place through the risen Lord, justifying our calling the Spirit the Spirit of Christ. Yet this does not alter the fact that the Spirit originates and proceeds from the Father.[8] Based on this passage, the imparting of the Spirit is in connection with an appearance of the risen Lord. This notion of relating the imparting of the Spirit to the Easter appearances seems to have more inner probability than the account of Luke, which separates Easter, ascension, appearances over 40 days, and Pentecost on the 50th day.[9] This verse was important in the Latin theology of the Middle Ages, where it spoke of the procession of both Son and Spirit. In that view, what distinguished these two processions was that the Son was a matter of begetting, and the Spirit was that of breathing. These processions in the eternal divine substance resulted in the persons of the Son and Spirit, who they distinguished by describing relations, the Father actively begetting, the Son passively begotten, and the Spirit passively breathed. Such processions take place from all eternity in the divine essence.[10] The Spirit enables them, in their role of having the authority of messengers to communicate salvation and impose judgment,[11] to discern what sins to forgive or not forgive. As a charge to administer church discipline, it involves the granting or withholding of baptism on acceptance or rejection of the proclamation of the community.[12] The already accomplished forgiveness of sin through the cross becomes a gift the disciples, after receiving the gifts of peace and the Spirit, may offer to others. Sin is a theological category, so forgiveness is the mission of the community to continue the work Jesus began in making the Father known in the world. Jesus defines the primary characteristic of this age to be the giving and receiving of forgiveness. This is a variant of Matthew 16:19, 18:18. One can think of this as the handing over of the power of the keys to the disciples. Yet we cannot speak of the instituting of a penitential rite by Jesus related to the pronouncing of the remission of sins as the sacrament of penance that the church would possess. In early Christianity, the forgiving of sins went with baptism and only later was a special supplementary rite developed for lapsed Christians. Nevertheless, pronouncing the remission of sins originated with Jesus, which we can see in Mark 2:9ff and Luke 7:47. As a result, the risen Lord imparted an authority and indeed an obligation to forgive to all his disciples.[13]
Application
In an incomplete novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald called The Last Tycoon (1941), he wrote that “there are no second acts in American lives.” Of course, he was not so naïve as to think that people cannot make a dramatic turn in one’s life. Here is an example of the truth of this statement. Yes, Bill Clinton went on to continue to be president and have a roll in American politics. The “however” is that people will always think of him in connection with his sexual relationships with a variety of women, often in the context of the inequality of the power equation. His relationships with women, especially an intern, will forever define and mark the memory of him. His example is one of many. One moment may not end a life. In fact, after that moment, one may go on to be very successful. Yet, that one moment can be a defining moment in terms of what people remember. In that sense, there are no second acts in American lives.
However, Fitzgerald also wrote in an essay called "My Lost City," which is a beautiful testament to New York City, in which he wrote: “I once thought that there were no second acts in American lives, but there was certainly to be a second act to New York's boom days.” Yes, this is also true. History is full of second acts, careers, and mid-life crises. Sometimes, life gives us a second chance because we were not ready the first time. Sometimes, as the wind of change sweeps across our lives, we find our true direction. Sometimes, we will not know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory (Dr. Seuss).
Many of us can hope for or be grateful for the second act.
Every so often, you meet people who radiate joy — who seem to know why they were put on this earth, who glow with a kind of inner light. Life, for these people, has often followed what we might think of as a two-mountain shape. They get out of school, they start a career, and they begin climbing the mountain they thought they were meant to climb. Their goals on this first mountain are the ones our culture endorses: to be a success, to make your mark, to experience personal happiness. But when they get to the top of that mountain, something happens. They look around and find the view … unsatisfying. They realize: This wasn’t my mountain after all. There’s another, bigger mountain out there that is actually my mountain.
And so, they embark on a new journey. On the second mountain, life moves from self-centered to other-centered. They want the things that are truly worth wanting, not the things other people tell them to want. They embrace a life of interdependence, not independence. They surrender to a life of commitment.[14]
In the plain, flat world of Euclidian geometry, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. We must not confuse Euclidian world with real world. Often, the journey toward actualizing your life purpose is a long and winding road. You may start out in cosmetology and become a mortuary hairdresser and become a successful actor (Danny DeVito and Whoopi Goldberg). You may begin as a receptionist and become a successful country singer (Faith Hill). You may take acting classes to overcome shyness, become a carpenter in California for sixteen years, and finally land the acting role of a lifetime (Harrison Ford). You may franchise a failing business at the age of 65 and become the symbol of Kentucky Fried Chicken (Colonel Sanders). You might have a personally devastating loss of wife and mother on the same day, take some time away from being a successful politician in New York, go west, join the military, and eventually become open for the next thing in your life, even president of the United States (Teddy Roosevelt). Yes, the path to finding your joy and satisfaction in life, the path to fulfilling your personal mission in life, may well be a long, winding road.
The disciples understood so little of Jesus while they were with him. They misunderstood his teachings. They found it difficult to understand what following him might mean. They abandoned Jesus at the time of crucifixion. They gather secretly because of fear of their Jewish leaders. If any group of people needed a second act, the disciples did. They will have a second act of receiving energy derived from the Spirit of life and truth, their Advocate, empowering them and guiding them to continue the mission of Jesus as those sent into the world by the Father.
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[4] Schweizer, TDNT, VI, 442.
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[14] —Blurb for David Brooks, The Second Mountain (New York: Random House, 2019).
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