"And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."
"St. Paul At His Writing Desk" - Rembrandt
Why is forgiveness so important? Because as C. S. Lewis said, "We are all fallen creatures and all very hard to live with.” We constantly wrong God, ourselves, and each other because of the frailty of our condition as fallen beings and through willfully uncharitable acts. This creates division and undermines love and community. Without forgiveness there can never be any reconciliation between ourselves and those who trespass against us or between ourselves and those against whom we trespass.
If there is no reconciliation between people, then there is no community. Every time we alienate someone by wronging them and every time someone alienates us by wronging us, yet another line would be drawn and another irreparable division would be made until in the end, we would all end up isolated from one another, alone and harboring for all eternity our seething anger against those who have wronged us. Sounds sort of like a description of hell, doesn't it?
So that's why we need forgiveness: Forgiveness is necessary for reconciliation, which is necessary for community, which is necessary for love. Community is the seat of love. Love by definition cannot exist outside of community. Even God Himself, who is Love personified, has been revealed to the world through His Church as a community, the Holy Trinity who are three in one, which is one of the greatest and most cherished mysteries of the Christian faith and one that explains so much and fits so well the Christian understanding of love.
So as a necessary precondition for love, which is the greatest of the Christian virtues and the Christian's highest calling, there must be forgiveness because we live in a fallen world. Forgive others as Christ forgives you, and if you struggle with forgiveness, ask God daily to heal your soul and make it possible for you to forgive others.
8 comments:
Here's the kicker. How many times can you forgive? How do you know when someone starts abusing your forgiveness?
Questions for us all and without any hard and fast answers.
I love the idea of forgiveness, but it just seems not be in me.
And what Elijah said--I've forgiven people some pretty foul behaviour, only to have them repeat it. They appeared to regard forgiveness as permission to do it again.
Elijah, Peter asked Christ that very same question (Matthew Ch 18):
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.
"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'
"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
From the Christian view of things, we have each been forgiven such great debts that it is a small matter to forgive others their debts.
True. But I reckon just forgive them and tell them to piss off.
Thanks for reminding me of that parable. Forgot about it. Just that Tom Clancy is a bit more of a robust read than the Bible...
We'd better hope that God doesn't forgive us the way that we forgive others.God forgives us the sin of un-forgiveness. Repent, and try to forgive yet once again.
Now, willful unrepentance... good luck.
Very true! We are lucky that while our sense of justice is often to return wrong for wrong, God's sense of it is always to return love and grace for wrong, even to the point of dying for all our wrongs.
"...God's sense of it is always to return love and grace for wrong, even to the point of dying for all our wrongs."
Amen!!
You're an extremely talented writer, Wes...I look forward to reading more!
PS - Check us out - Our blog is nowhere as serious/contemplative as yours, but it's fun, haha...
whitney-vaughn.blogspot.com
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