Forgiveness Is Not a Dirty Word

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When some people talk about “forgiveness,” the expression on their faces looks like old Ebeneezer here. “I can’t do that!” “He doesn’t deserve it!” “I hate her!” “Do you know what they did?”

And here’s the kicker: “I’m not going to forgive them and say what they did was OK!”

Well, of COURSE it wasn’t OK! That’s not what forgiveness IS.

Forgiving something for something they did to hurt you or others doesn’t say that was OK. It doesn’t even say it wasn’t that bad. It doesn’t say much of anything about THEM. It says something about YOU.

Will you keep these people tied to you by your anger? Will you get ulcers from being angry? Will you drive off friends and family with leaking bitterness? Will you feel a sense of power from not forgiving, even though it gives you ZERO actual power over the person who hurt you?

Because that is exactly what is going to happen if you do not forgive. And please tell me what kind of revenge or power you gain by tying yourself to that person, getting sick, damaging your relationships, and being powerless?

Yeah. Unforgiveness is clearly great. Woo hoo.

NOT to mention that God take unforgiveness extremely seriously.

“And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” (Mark 11:25)

“For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 6:14-15)

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.” (Mt. 18:21-22)

Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. (Colossians 3:13)

It’s Not Easy

I’ll bet you’ve struggled to forgive, we all have. The more a person hurt us or someone we love, the harder it is. But God says really clearly that He wants us to forgive – but we’re not God. We’re sure not perfect. So do we really have to forgive? God’s short answer is — “YES.” God’s longer answer is, “YES – and I will empower you to forgive in My power and love.”

The following segments are a Bible story on forgiveness, which is kind of a strange story when you think about it; why God really, really, really wants us to forgive; and a true story about a concentration camp survivor who confronts her Nazi guard.

The Bible Speaks: The Taking of the Woman in Adultery

John 8:2-11

Jesus spent the night at the Mount of Olives. By dawn he returned to the temple courts, where all the people have been expecting him and he sat down to teach them. His voice cut through the noise of the sellers, of the crowd, of the animals to be sacrificed, and off the rough commands shouted by the Temple guards in an effort to bring some order to the chaos.

But the religious leaders of Israel, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, wanted to make an example of him. They wanted to be sure the people knew that Jesus would not obey the law, that he was no devout Jew, and certainly not the son of the Most High God.

So into the temple courts the Pharisees dragged a woman. She was disheveled, her clothes were torn, her face twisted in a rictus of fear, for the law said that men and women guilty of adultery must be stoned to death. Stoning was a painful, humiliating way to die.

And under Roman law, state executions were illegal – officially. “Unofficially” was a different story. This depraved woman was not a Roman citizen. She was just a Jew and just a woman, and she had cheated on her lawful husband. If any Roman soldier witnessed the incident, they pretended not to see.

So viciously, illegally, in a cynical effort to trap Jesus into breaking Mosaic law, the Pharisees had her brought before him in the hundreds of people waiting to see what this Jesus would do.

Her captors roughly pulled her to her feet before Jesus and the crowd and said to him, “Rabbi, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The Law of Moses, the very law all Jews are commanded to obey, commands us to stone women like this. Now, what do you have to say?”

They waited; the woman half-forgotten because she wasn’t the reason they were there. This upstart young rabbi who claimed to be the son of God, was.

Jesus, who had been teaching the crowds before the Pharisees dragging the prisoner, went silent. He bent down and started to write something on the ground with his finger.

They must have thought they had him, and he was merely delaying the inevitable charge of blasphemy. So they asked him again. And again.

In his own good time, he straightened up. The crowd went silent. The Pharisees waited for his guilty words. But all Jesus said was, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And instead of fixing each of them with a cold and powerful glare, he bent down again and wrote on the ground.

He didn’t look up. The angry, violent men who surrounded them with stones in their hands began to drift away. The older ones went first, remembering a lifetime of sins. The younger ones followed their elders. Finally, only the woman was standing there. For the second time Jesus straightened up and asked her, perhaps in some mild surprise, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

 “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then I don’t either,” Jesus said. “Go — but leave your sinful life behind.”

Forgiveness

Forgiveness. It is not in our human nature to forgive. We are attacked. We defend ourselves. Someone treats us unjustly and we want justice. Someone is mean to us. We want to hit back, even as the event recedes into the past. We keep it alive with our revenge fantasies.

Yet, Jesus was extremely clear that we need to forgive. Mark 11:25:  And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them so that your father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” – Sandy

God has told us in no uncertain terms to forgive. It’s true that God does not automatically forgive anyone ever born. He loves us, but he’s very clear that people must accept Jesus Christ as their savior in order to be forgiven.

But the last time I looked, I’m not Jesus and neither are you. We are to forgive the people who hurt us just as Jesus gave grace to the crowd who crucified him. This can take a long time, a great injustice or hurt done to you or someone you love is hard to forgive. So is a long history of small slights, which can build a towering anger and resentment.

In these cases, the ability to forgive starts with the will to forgive — and a lot of prayer. God will give you the grace to forgive, but you must come to a place where you’re ready to start.

Remember that your lack of forgiveness is unlikely to hurt the person who hurt you! The feeling of refusing to forgive feels powerful.

It’s not. It’s only tearing you up. It doesn’t hurt its object. It just hurts you. And I’ll tell you something, if the person you’re angry at wanted to hurt you in the first place? Well, your lack of forgiveness makes him very, very happy.

Is this what you want? Of course not!

“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 6:14-15)   – Alice

Honestly how much clearer could Jesus be?

We also forgive so our prayers will be answered. Apparently, God is not big on answering our prayers if we refuse to forgive someone. Remember — that this is for our sakes! We will be stunted and unhappy if we refuse to forgive.

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Mt. 18:21-22) — Carol

The Hebrews used the number seven as a number of perfection. Peter really thought he was being very generous with his suggestion of “seven times.” The Jews believed that three was plenty, in fact, you really should not forgive a person after three times. After that many times it was clear that the person would never straighten up and fly.

Sounds good to us!

But what does Jesus say? Something radical: not seven, which was already generous by Peter’s lights; but seventy-seven times – in other words, keep going. Don’t stop.

It sounds impossible for us to do – except that God forgives us again and again and again! And the good thing too! Can you imagine if God only forgave us 3 times or 7 times or even 77 times over our whole lives?! Very frankly, we’d never make it into heaven!

All right then, how? When you have been damaged by someone else, it’s hard to let those feelings go. But forgiveness isn’t a feeling, although when you do forgive you will feel more at peace as you go along.

Forgiveness is a decision.

We cannot afford to wait until we feel emotionally ready to forgive. Forgiveness is first and foremost obedience to Christ, and his command to forgive.

Secondly, our lack of forgiveness stunts and embitters us. “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Colossians 3:13). – Charlene

And while I’m at it, when you ask God for forgiveness for yourself, forgive yourself too! We tend to find a sort of bizarre reverse “holiness” and don’t forgive ourselves even when we have asked the Lord to forgive us. This is of course, utterly ridiculous.

Do not fall into the twin errors of not forgiving others and not forgiving ourselves. The lack of forgiveness is not righteous anger, discernment, or true repentance. It is turning our back on the beautiful gifts of God: forgiveness, grace, redemption.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful. And just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9) – Chris

Testimony: Corrie Ten Boom and the Nazi Guard

Corrie Ten Boom (kor-ee ten bome) was born in 1892 in the Netherlands. World War II broke out in Europe when Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Although the Netherlands was officially neutral, the German Army invaded in 1940. German bombing runs devastated Dutch cities, and within five days the government and Royal family had fled to England and Canada, and the Dutch army laid down their arms.

All Nazi occupations were evil through and through, and they were particularly successful in the Netherlands. The Nazis began an efficient program of rounding up Dutch Jews for the death camps, achieving an unholy 70% fatality rate.

However, some Dutch citizens did something about it. The Dutch resistance began almost as soon as the Nazis settled into their new headquarters. And throughout the country, brave Gentiles risked their own lives to hide their Jewish neighbors. The extended Ten Boom family were among them. Their Christian faith would not allow them to deny help to the desperate. Father Casper and his two unmarried adult daughters, Corrie and Betsey, led the dangerous work.

As it turns out, their work was too successful to stay secret. They were known to the Dutch resistance, who even sent an architect to their home to build a secret room. In 1944, a Dutch informant named Jan Vogel told the Nazis about the Ten Boom family’s work. The Gestapo arrested the entire family, but they never found the Jews hidden in the house. Other resistance workers spirited them to safety.

Casper died 10 days later. Most of the family were released for lack of evidence, but Corrie and her sister Betsy were formally arrested and eventually sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany.

The women never stop trusting God. That managed to sneak in a Bible and held worship services at night. But Betsie’s health continued to deteriorate, and she died on 16 December 1944 at the age of 59. 

25 days later, all of the women in her age group were sent to the gas chambers. Corrie had been released five days earlier thanks to a “clerical error.” She returned safely home, and on May 6, 1945, the Germans officially surrendered.

Corrie Ten Boom believed that the Christian’s highest calling is to love and forgive as God has loved and forgiven us. In 1947, just two years after liberation, she traveled to war-torn Germany to preach the message of forgiveness at a church in Munich. In 1972, she shared what happened there.

Corrie’s Testimony

It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear.

It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives.

It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown.

“When we confess our sins,” I said, “God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever.”

The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room.

And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones.

It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!

Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbrück concentration camp where we were sent.

Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: “A fine message, fräulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!”

And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course–how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?

But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. It was the first time since my release that I had been face to face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.

“You mentioned Ravensbrück in your talk,” he was saying. “I was a guard in there.” No, he did not remember me.

“But since that time,” he went on, “I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein”–again the hand came out– “will you forgive me?”

And I stood there–I whose sins had every day to be forgiven–and could not. Betsie had died in that place–could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?

It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.

For I had to do it–I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. “If you do not forgive men their trespasses,” Jesus says, “neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”

I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality.

Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that.

And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion–I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.

“Jesus, help me!” I prayed silently. “I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.”

And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

“I forgive you, brother!” I cried. “With all my heart!”

For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.