June 23, 2005
Short on I'm Sorry,I'm Sorry, I'm Sorry...
According to the New Testament, forgiveness should never be in short supply. But is forgiveness a matter of supply and demand? Consider the possibilities: You supply the sins and demand my forgiveness; I supply the sins and you demand my forgiveness; you supply the sins and I demand your forgiveness.
Imagine Peter coming to Jesus troubled and burdened and asking Him, Just how many times do I have to forgive that person for his sins? (Ok so this is a loose translation.) Perhaps Peter was thinking once should have been enough, but certainly isn't seven times more than adequate? If Jesus had replied to me, seventy times seven... know I would have said, yeah, right!
Why 70x7 or 490 times? There is a great deal of symbolism associated with the number seven as well as seventy in the Bible. Of course, not being a biblical scholar or one with a good memory of scripture, there are just a few references that come to mind…
Seven was to have represented completeness and perfection, as in the seven days of creation and the corresponding seven-day week, and ultimately with the Sabbath in Pharaoh’s dream, there were seven good years followed by seven years of famine. Jacob worked seven years for Rachel.
The Old Testament speaks of seventy elders. Also, Jesus sent out the seventy. Seventy years was to be the length of the Exile. And then there was a period of seventy weeks of years was to culminate in the coming of the messianic kingdom.
After many Hanukah celebrations, I recall enough of the story that the tyrant, Antiochus forbade the Israelites to practice their religion or to otherwise be free. Burnt offerings, meat offerings or peace offerings were required.
For human decency and the well being of the family and the greater good, a peace offering is an all too familiar term and none too common practice.
In an amazing article by Father Richard John Neuhaus, First Things, March 2000 “Father, Forgive Them", Father Neuhaus asks us to consider some tough suggestions: For whom does he pray for forgiveness? For the leaders of his own people, a fragile, frightened establishment that could not abide the threat of the presence of a love so long delayed? For pitiable Pilate, forever wringing his hands forever soiled? For the soldiers who did the deed, who wielded the whip, who drove the nails, who thrust the spear, it all being but a day’s work on foreign assignment, far from home? Or for us, he asks forgiveness, for we were there.
Nothing more needs to be said; but true to the form of the infinite wisdom of Father Neuhaus, he says more. Something more that goes to the core and will make a difference in your heart:
We confess to hurting someone we love and she says, "Forget it. It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter." But she knows and we know that it is not nothing and it does matter and we will not forget it. Forgive and forget, they say, but that is surely wrong. What is forgotten need not, indeed cannot, be forgiven. Love does not say to the beloved that it does not matter, for the beloved matters. Spare me the sentimental love that tells me what I do and what I am does not matter.
Forgiveness costs. Forgiveness costs dearly. There are theories of atonement saying that Christ paid the price. His death appeased God’s wrath and satisfied God’s justice. That way of putting it appeals to the biblical witness and venerable tradition, and no doubt contains a great truth. Yet for many in the past and at present that way of speaking poses great problems. The subtlety of the theory is overwhelmed by the cartoon picture of an angry Father who demands the death of His Son, maybe even kills His Son, in order to appease His own wrath. In its vulgar form which means the form most common, it is a matter of settling scores, a drama vengeful and vindictive, more worthy of The God the father than of the Father of whom it is said, "God is love."
And yet forgiveness costs. Forgiveness is not forgetfulness; not counting their trespasses is not a kindly accountant winking at what is wrong; it is not a benign cooking of the books. In the world, in our own lives, something has gone dreadfully wrong, and it must be set right. Recall when you were a little child and somebody maybe you did something very bad. Maybe a lie was told, or some money was stolen, or the cookie jar lies shattered on the kitchen floor. The bad thing has been found out, and now something must happen, something must be done about it. The fear of punishment is terrible, but not as terrible as the thought that nothing will happen, that bad things don't matter. If bad things don't matter, then good things don't matter, and then nothing matters and the meaning of everything lies shattered like the cookie jar on the kitchen floor."
Forgiveness is not just about me or you or them; ultimately it is about Him and Us. Not separate, but one.
Imagine Peter coming to Jesus troubled and burdened and asking Him, Just how many times do I have to forgive that person for his sins? (Ok so this is a loose translation.) Perhaps Peter was thinking once should have been enough, but certainly isn't seven times more than adequate? If Jesus had replied to me, seventy times seven... know I would have said, yeah, right!
Why 70x7 or 490 times? There is a great deal of symbolism associated with the number seven as well as seventy in the Bible. Of course, not being a biblical scholar or one with a good memory of scripture, there are just a few references that come to mind…
Seven was to have represented completeness and perfection, as in the seven days of creation and the corresponding seven-day week, and ultimately with the Sabbath in Pharaoh’s dream, there were seven good years followed by seven years of famine. Jacob worked seven years for Rachel.
The Old Testament speaks of seventy elders. Also, Jesus sent out the seventy. Seventy years was to be the length of the Exile. And then there was a period of seventy weeks of years was to culminate in the coming of the messianic kingdom.
After many Hanukah celebrations, I recall enough of the story that the tyrant, Antiochus forbade the Israelites to practice their religion or to otherwise be free. Burnt offerings, meat offerings or peace offerings were required.
For human decency and the well being of the family and the greater good, a peace offering is an all too familiar term and none too common practice.
In an amazing article by Father Richard John Neuhaus, First Things, March 2000 “Father, Forgive Them", Father Neuhaus asks us to consider some tough suggestions: For whom does he pray for forgiveness? For the leaders of his own people, a fragile, frightened establishment that could not abide the threat of the presence of a love so long delayed? For pitiable Pilate, forever wringing his hands forever soiled? For the soldiers who did the deed, who wielded the whip, who drove the nails, who thrust the spear, it all being but a day’s work on foreign assignment, far from home? Or for us, he asks forgiveness, for we were there.
Nothing more needs to be said; but true to the form of the infinite wisdom of Father Neuhaus, he says more. Something more that goes to the core and will make a difference in your heart:
We confess to hurting someone we love and she says, "Forget it. It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter." But she knows and we know that it is not nothing and it does matter and we will not forget it. Forgive and forget, they say, but that is surely wrong. What is forgotten need not, indeed cannot, be forgiven. Love does not say to the beloved that it does not matter, for the beloved matters. Spare me the sentimental love that tells me what I do and what I am does not matter.
Forgiveness costs. Forgiveness costs dearly. There are theories of atonement saying that Christ paid the price. His death appeased God’s wrath and satisfied God’s justice. That way of putting it appeals to the biblical witness and venerable tradition, and no doubt contains a great truth. Yet for many in the past and at present that way of speaking poses great problems. The subtlety of the theory is overwhelmed by the cartoon picture of an angry Father who demands the death of His Son, maybe even kills His Son, in order to appease His own wrath. In its vulgar form which means the form most common, it is a matter of settling scores, a drama vengeful and vindictive, more worthy of The God the father than of the Father of whom it is said, "God is love."
And yet forgiveness costs. Forgiveness is not forgetfulness; not counting their trespasses is not a kindly accountant winking at what is wrong; it is not a benign cooking of the books. In the world, in our own lives, something has gone dreadfully wrong, and it must be set right. Recall when you were a little child and somebody maybe you did something very bad. Maybe a lie was told, or some money was stolen, or the cookie jar lies shattered on the kitchen floor. The bad thing has been found out, and now something must happen, something must be done about it. The fear of punishment is terrible, but not as terrible as the thought that nothing will happen, that bad things don't matter. If bad things don't matter, then good things don't matter, and then nothing matters and the meaning of everything lies shattered like the cookie jar on the kitchen floor."
Forgiveness is not just about me or you or them; ultimately it is about Him and Us. Not separate, but one.
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