Another week another accidental killing.

At least that’s what the white police officer in Minneapolis would have us believe after she says she mistook her handgun for a Taser before she shot and killed an unarmed black man.

I don’t know how that happens, but I do know what it’s like to make big, regretful mistakes.

I do know that, as police put up barricades around her house in expectation of a vengeful mob that won’t be very forgiving - that officer, now in the throes of the biggest trauma of her life, will have one of the biggest challenges of her life in her quest for forgiveness and making things right.

In this third week of Easter we are going to hear Jesus tell his followers to go out and proclaim forgiveness and hope for a world full of broken police officers like this one.

Jesus knows how you and I grieve and mourn for those we've harmed, and pray for their well-being - and how we, beat up, penalize, and punish ourselves for the mistakes we’ve made.

The good word from Jesus is that pain and suffering is not the end of the story. We can help make things right. We can be forgiven. We can get through this.

By following Jesus, over time, as we embrace the reality of love in us and in God, we can find ways to help those we've harmed, to cope, carry on, and even come to believe that we are lovable - and capable of love - even in light of the big trouble we’ve caused.

This is ‘good news’ because you and I suffer too much from the fallout of our mistakes - aside from the damage we've caused, the people we’ve harmed - we talk cruelly to ourselves, get frustrated, fed up, and get mad at others because we’re mad at ourselves.

Jesus shows us how to give it all to God, to call on that ‘higher power’ - admitting we can’t do it on our own.

And when we do that, we see that we can be forgiven, by God, by ourselves, and maybe even find the courage to say we’re sorry to those we’ve hurt, as we work to fix what we've broken and pray for their forgiveness as well.

So who have we hurt?

How can we make it right?

How can we give it to God?

How can we embrace forgiveness - for others and for ourselves?

If we can’t make things right, we can make things better.

This is our Easter challenge, this is our Easter gift.