One of defining moments of Christianity is when Jesus is
hanging on the Cross and in his death-throws he makes a plea to his Heavenly
Father to forgive those who are executing him in this most terrible way, “Father,
forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing”. That is the where the rubber hits the road
for Christians.
The challenge for us to forgive others has not been treated
seriously enough by organized religion or society. You can see this in the way children are told
to, “say your sorry” by their parents even though they do not feel sorry in the
least. The church says that we should
forgive and so we should. But how does
forgiveness actually happen? We can
decide we will forgive because after all it is the Christian thing to do. So, we can tell the offending parry (perhaps
through gritted teeth), “I forgive you”.
You might actually believe that you have forgiven the other person. You may actually convince your self that, at
that moment in any case, you do believe you have forgiven them. However, in my experience and understanding,
true forgiveness does not come that easily.
Forgiveness is a process which can and probably will take
many years and have many set backs. You
will find that you have made a conscious decision to forgive but then the memory
of the experience which requires forgiveness and the associated emotions such
as anger and fear and desire for justice and even vengeance will overwhelm
you. When these things occur, it is a
sign that true forgiveness has not occurred.
There was an excellent article in the Glove and Mail,
appropriately on Saturday of Easter weekend, that addresses many of the issues
and misconceptions around forgiveness.
The article, entitled A Radical Grief, explores the journey of two
people whose daughter had been murdered.
They made a conscious decision to forgive the murderer even though they
did not know the person’s identity for many years. They made this decision, in part, because, shortly
after the crime became public knowledge, they were visited by someone who had
experience a similar tragedy. He warned
them that his life had been destroyed because he was not able to forgive the
person who had murdered his child.
The article is valuable because it illustrates a number of
lessons that we need to learn. The first
one for me is not directly about forgiveness but it is related. The article is an illustration about an
important way of understanding sin. Sin
is those things which ‘chain us to the past’.
I do not remember the source of this idea. However, it is an important one for me. If we allow events and circumstances in our
lives to prevent us from living the lives God intends us to lead we are in a
sinful state. If my anger and hatred of
someone consumes me fully or even partially we can not be open to receiving
God’s love and share that love with the world.
We are indeed chained to the past.
There are many other ways of understanding sin but this is an important
one.
Another lesson from this article is that it is not necessary
for someone to ask for forgiveness to be give forgiven. In the article the parents did not even know
who the murderer of their daughter was.
However, they made a conscious decision to forgive them. There is a common belief someone should not
be forgiven useless they repent of their actions and seek forgiveness. This can help the process. However, it is not necessary. The act of Forgiveness is as much for the
salvation of the person who forgives as it is for the one forgiven.
Finally, forgiveness is a journey which can take a long
time. It doesn’t come easily and quickly
in many cases. They couple in the
article explained the difficulty of forgiving the perpetrator. At times over the years they were overwhelmed
with anger and the desire for vengeance.
However, they continued on their journey of and to forgiveness.
Their case was particularly poignant. For many years they did not know the identity
of the perpetrator. When the identity
was discovered through DNA evidence, they had the trial of sitting through the
trial of the accused. He was found
guilty. However, a new trial was ordered
on appeal and at this time the outcome of the second trial is unclear. The mother is quoted in the article, “I want
to live,” she said. “If we had waited
for justice 32 years ago, can you imagine where we’d be? We would have just put our whole lives on the
shelf.”
Love is the only thing that can defeat hate. Blessings on you journey.
