The Purpose of Forgiveness

             Forgiveness is one of the hardest things that we ever have to confront.  It is sometimes easy to forgive ourselves, using excuses for our behavior that sometimes we don’t even believe, but forgiving others is incredibly difficult.  We keep slights in the back of our mind for a long time and sometimes they change us.  I have watched people become bitter over the way that they perceive that they are treated by their fellow humans and then treat others with the contempt that they have for the way that they think that they have been treated.

            When I regularly visited in the penitentiary with the men who had killed others, we often talked about forgiveness.  Mostly that fell on deaf ears, because the prisoners couldn’t forgive themselves.  None of them thought that what they had done was justified.  They couldn’t imagine how a loving God could ever forgive what they had done.  They were reconciled to not only living the rest of their lives in the prison, but they looked forward to an eternity in the hell that God would condemn them to because of their crimes.  I talked and talked about what a loving and merciful God we have; who condemns nobody and loves all.  Those words always fell on deaf ears.  I remember one man who had killed two people, who came to me after these discussions and tugged my sleeve and told me that there were two people in the graveyard because of what he had done, and that God was never, never going to forgive that.  There was a moment later on when I knew that he had heard the message.  There was a light in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.  He lived into his mid eighties, and in his final years, other convicts would bring him out of the hospital and across the yard to our group.  Crowds would surround him, wanting to be near the obvious light that seemed to be everywhere around him.  He was forgiven and he knew it.  That was one of the most beautiful things that I saw in the prison.

            Forgiveness seemed be Jesus’ theme on the cross.  First, the forgiveness of those who were responsible for his crucifixion:  Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do!  And then the forgiveness of the repentant criminal on the cross beside him:  Today, you will be with me in paradise!  There is nothing easy about either of these things.  I can hardly imagine a man on a cross, tormented by horrible pain, letting his tormentors go with a statement about forgiveness.  The taunting and the pain continued; the people around him held him in contempt.  What good was forgiveness going to do?  I suspect that it had something to do with Jesus’ peace.  Even in the horrible condition of pain and suffering that he was under, his peace was a high priority.  In order to remain human, in order to continue for all of his life as the messenger of God’s incredible love, he forgave as he always forgave. 

            There is the teaching for all of us.  Keep your peace, forgive as you have been forgiven.  Let the light of God’s love pour forth from you so that others can be attracted and know it also, for their peace is contingent on their forgiveness and their ability to forgive others.  It sounds so easy, but it isn’t.  It requires of us prayer and a willingness to let the things that have been done to us by others go, so that our peace and our love can remain intact.