A teacher gave her students an unusual assignment: They were to bring to class on Monday a clear plastic bag and a sack of potatoes.

In class on Monday, she asked each student to take one potato for every person they had refused to forgive or had treated badly. They were to write the name of that person and the date on the potato and put it in the plastic bag. Some of the bags were quite heavy.

The students were then told they had to carry their bag of potatoes with them everywhere for one week -lugging it to school, to the library, to church, to the mall, to the playground and ball fields; putting it beside their beds at night, next to their desk when they did their homework, by their chairs at dinner time.

As you can imagine, carrying around that sack of potatoes for a week became a pain -not to mention trying to explain the contents to people. And within a few days, the potatoes themselves deteriorated into a nasty slime.

The following Monday, the students were all too glad to throwaway their sacks of rotting potatoes. But it taught them a valuable lesson about the time and energy we waste on lugging around our anger and guilt, on carrying our pain and cynicism into every moment of our lives. Too often we think of forgiveness as a gift to the other person -but it is clearly a gift to ourselves, as well.

The students began to understand that there was so much more than a sack of potatoes weighing their lives down.

We know that oft time’s life has left us disillusioned, disappointed, distrustful. The “song” of youth has been replaced by scepticism, doubt and scorn. We understand Thomas’ reaction to the disciples’ outrageous news about the Resurrection. But the empty tomb calls us to move beyond our fears, Sorrows, anger and doubts in order to awaken the possibilities for resurrection along our journey to the Easter promise as well as at the completion of that journey. As Thomas experiences, Easter transforms our crippling sense of scepticism and cynicism into a sense of trust and hope in the providence of God.

The first gift the Risen Christ gives to his new church is forgiveness -forgiveness that enables us to drop the hurt and pain and resentments that weigh our lives down. The Spirit of God that Jesus “breathes” into the small community on Easter night calls us to the peace and sense of freedom that can be ours through the hard work of reconciliation and building community. The Easter Christ pulls us out of the tombs we create for ourselves out of our anger and guilt, rips away the burial clothes of pain and distrust so that we may experience the freedom of living our lives in the real peace of Christ born out of selflessness and compassion.