The congregation I serve will call an Associate Pastor. When he has accepted the congregation's call, the installation of a new pastor encourages both pastors and congregations to consider the meaning of the ministry ordained by God and its relationship to the bride of Christ, the holy church. Pastors have the power of the keys, so that they can forgive sins. However, that statement alone is enough to touch off great battles about the authority of our pastors. How can we dare to say that our pastors have the power to forgive sins in the congregations? Many people are deeply offended by the claim to this kind of power. They often ask the question of Jesus' opponents in the Gospel, "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" (Lk 5:21). The simple answer is that the people to whom God confers the right of forgiving have the power to forgive, in His name.

Christ confers the power to forgive on His church. The power of forgiving is given with all the good gifts that come with the Word: preaching, absolution, baptism, and the supper. He breathes on them and in that breath there is every good gift. The Spirit is given with the divine kiss of speech (Gn 2:7). Christ leans over the corpse of humanity (1Ki 17:22) and resuscitates it with the divine breath. Now the dead live by every breath that proceeds from the mouth of God. When our pastors speak for God by sharing the divine word of forgiving He continues to give life where there was none. Earth and heaven touch. The Spirit's breath breathed by our pastors recreates humanity in our little churches. Eden's door is opened again. Jesus sends his disciples even now and says to them, "Whoever hears you hears me" (Lk 10:16). God's speech does what God says it does, because it is God's speech, not just the speech of our pastors. We should never listen to them for the sake of their own person, but for the sake of Christ, who has sent them to us.

Perhaps you've seen an action movie in which the hero saves someone from drowning. He buys time for the drowning person, who is trapped underwater, by shuttling back and forth between the surface and the trapped victim. At every turn, he breathes his breath into the mouth of the trapped person. This gives him time to free the trapped person before he drowns. Our pastors are doing this when they speak for God. They are taking the breath that hovers upon the surface of the deep (Gn 1:2) and speaking it into the mouths and hearts of people drowning in their own guilt. Our pastor does not make the air, he only breathes out what the Spirit has breathed in. He brings the saving breath to those trapped in the guilty deep created by their own sinfulness. The power of the keys frees from the shadow of death. Our pastors dare to forgive. You should dare to believe them when they speak.