“When they came to the place called The Skull, there they
crucified Him and the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left. But Jesus was saying, "Father, forgive them; for they
do not know what they are doing." And they cast lots, dividing up His
garments among themselves.”
This passage from
Luke gives us the first of the last seven words of Jesus Christ. In my opinion
they are his most powerful. Forgiveness is an incredibly complex thing. We see
that as Jesus is being killed; the nails have been driven in, the beatings have
left him bloodied and broken, the weight of his body on the cross crushing him,
he uses one of his last breathes to ask for forgiveness. But, not forgiveness
for himself, he asks God to forgive us: the very people who have condemned him
to this violent death. And despite God having to watch as his only son
crucified and the guilty run free, we are forgiven.
From the moment we
are baptized we are told that we are forgiven all our sins; and we are reminded
every Sunday that even though we are imperfect people we are loved and forgiven
by God. But, sometimes I wonder if we have lost sight of the reason forgiveness
is so stressed in our stories and liturgies. We focus on God forgiving us, so
thankful that when we can’t even forgive ourselves we still know that God will
forgive us and love us unconditionally. Every Sunday after the confession and
forgiveness of sins I know that I breathe a sigh of relief and am grateful to know
that even though I am flawed and sinful that God can offer me what no other
human can – unconditional love and forgiveness.
As people we
struggle to forgive. Of all the things we are asked to do in the name of God,
forgiveness can sometimes be the hardest. Sometimes we even struggle to accept
God’s forgiveness of us, but we are still comforted by it because it is
constant. But, all of us fall desperately short in the forgiveness of others.
So, the Church is constantly reminding us. In the Apostle’s Creed we say that
we “Believe in the forgiveness of sins”; which I always assumed was believing
in God’s ability to forgive us, but lately I have been looking at it from a
different perspective, I have been trying to picture it as believing in our
ability to forgive each other. Which we all promise to do in the Lord’s Prayer!
“Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us”. We promise to
forgive our neighbors and freinds, but how successful are we at actually doing
it?
In a recent
article in The Lutheran, Peter Nash says, “Being Lutheran means that I know a
lot more about justification than I know about human forgiveness. We are much
more concerned about getting right with God than we are with living right with
our neighbors as faithfully as possible.” Nash’s statement is so dead on that
it is almost scary. We are recipients of God’s unrelenting grace and
forgiveness on a daily basis and yet it is still so difficult for us to forgive
each other.
The worst part is
that we see amazing examples of humanity’s ability to forgive every day, a
blueprint, if you will, for our own acts of forgiveness. Take for instance the
story of Nelson Mandela. As some of you may know I lived in South Africa for a
year and served through the Young Adults in Global Mission. Even before
stepping foot onto South African soil I was an admirer of Nelson Mandela. But,
after spending a year with the people he liberated and talking to those who
remember all too well the time before democracy in South Africa and how hard it
was to fight for I admired him even more. He led by example; while many people
thought he would call for vengeance, to rid the country of the white minority
that had oppressed the black majority for so many generations, while they
waited for civil war, he surprised everyone, and said “forgive”. While in jail
on Robben Island he befriended his captors, learned their language, taught them
about his culture and built a mutual respect, this allowed him to walk away
from that cell in 1990 and to tell the people of South Africa, now is not a
time for vengeance and war, now is a time for forgiveness. Despite the very
violent years leading up to the 1994 elections South Africa’s transition to
democracy will go down in history as a bloodless one, one of forgiveness and
reconciliation. While Mandela’s actions can be very difficult to understand
what we can also focus on is the amount of time and prayer that went into his
ability to forgive and then the process that came after that was needed to heal
those wounds, which is where the reconciliation comes in.
Forgiveness does
not mean that everything is and always will be ok. Forgiveness is merely the
first of many steps to peace. To forgive doesn’t mean that you can’t be mad or
hurt, those feelings are normal when you feel you have been wronged. And when
we think about it even Jesus was known to flip a table or two. But, if we are
to follow the example of Christ we see that the anger does not last long, the
love and forgiveness follow shortly after, and once those three magical words
are spoken, once you say “I forgive you”… that is when the road to
reconciliation can begin.
We should never
forget the power of forgiveness, it is one of the few things that can show
unconditional love. Love is natural when times are easy, when everything is
going right. But when we see the sin, the hate, the mistakes, and cruelness of
this world, that is when the love can leave us, but it’s also the times when we
need it the most, so if we can forgive, despite the mistakes and mess then we
truly will understand the strength of God’s love for us, given to us because of
the sacrifice that Christ made on the cross. Through his death Christ paid for
our forgiveness, with his words “Forgive them father, for they know not what
they do” Christ saved us all. And perhaps, if we can find the room in our
hearts to forgive, we may start to save each other.
No comments:
Post a Comment