Mitchell, Brody, Shannon, and Shelby,Also Levi and Valerie,
Not so long ago, I said that I didn't believe in forgiveness. My ideas weren't particularly influential or popular, but I strongly stand behind my views on the human capacity for forgiveness. That is to say, I don't believe that any of us truly forgive each other. Not for the big things, not for the little things, either.
When someone commits a sin, they deliver damage. They owe you a debt, as Jesus put it. Sure, you can relieve them of the responsibility of paying that debt, but somehow that debt must be payed. Until then, the damage is real.
"Forgive because you have been forgiven." Except I don't see this ever truly at work in the lives of Christians. I see hatred, sometimes right on the surface, other times merely tucked away. Whatever the case, and however we try to rationalize it, I really don't think that human beings ever forgive.
I've been walking for some time and have had the opportunity to look around. I've looked left, right, up down, inside, outside, and I have created panoramas by spinning around in circles to take it all in. I've searched for things, and stumbled upon things serendipitously. Whenever there's something worth seeing, I stop. From what I've seen of the world, I'm certain of my opinion, and it's unfortunate that because it sounds jaded and pessimistic that people are going to assume that I'm just responding from bad experiences, that someday I will have a change of heart as I encounter something more inspiring.
This isn't pessimism, though. It's just realism. I believe in this because I believe that we need a Savior who had to take on all of our sins on the cross. Forgiveness had to start somewhere. It began there.
When we make forgiveness something easy, something we can simply do if we're feeling merciful, it isn't really forgiveness. One of our best recourses is to say "I realized that it wasn't such a big deal after all, so I just forgave her." Yet, if a sin was never a big deal, if it lacks a basic aspect of realness, then we basically forgive our debtors for nothing. In order for forgiveness to be real, the sin needs to be real.
Sometimes we merely forget sins committed against us. We run away from the possibility of considering them genuinely as bad as God considers them, and we file these sins away in our short-term memory. I won't congratulate people for saying that they forgave someone merely because they forgot what the sin was. "Forgive and forget" never really sat well in my book. I don't want to ever forget about the things that happened in my relationships with people, the good and the bad. I want to remember those relationships for exactly what they were.
No sin can ever go unpunished. A crack in a relationship must be reconciled. The way that we "forgive", those cracks remain there and we're content to merely walk along with a relationship that gets increasingly fragmented over time.
Once I talked with Justin about a cinematographic idea. I thought about what it would be like to film a movie through a cracked lens, and to allow the lens to continually grow more and more cracked as the story went on, representing the seemingly irreconcilable brokenness of the family in the frame. People would, at times, choose to feel good, but those cracks were always there.
So forgiveness, as we usually understand it, doesn't really make the sin go away or properly deal with it. It's merely a means of managing the symptoms of debt.
There are some good things in this strategy, though. I won't deny that. I think it's a good decision, albeit not an entirely complete one, to choose to not obsess over a debt. We shouldn't dwell on the sins against us, nor should we resent people. I believe that it's possible to get rid of resentment without forgiving someone.
It's just that these sins do need to be addressed. These cracks have to actually affect something. Someone has to feel actual hurt for these actual sins.
How is it, then, that we forgive someone, being fully conscious of their sins and their true weight, and not in some way hold any resentment against them? I don't think that we do. Although I will say this: God forgave their sins.
"Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant just as I had mercy on you?"
Maybe. Maybe I should have mercy. I can't bring myself to actually truly forgive, not as authentically as God does. I can only mimic the symptoms.
However, seeing as their sins are forgiven and the lost relationship has been paid for and restored, I suppose that I can have mercy on them. I can't forgive people with my heart, although maybe I can forgive with God's heart.
So your sins are forgiven. Not by me since I never really fixed anything. I didn't offer anyone life. Your sins are forgiven, though. So while I haven't learned the fine art of forgiving and I haven't seen anyone else actually forgive, either, I'm fairly sure that we can still get into a good habit of surrendering judgment to God.
Until then, I don't think I've ever forgiven anyone of any sin ever committed against me, and I don't think I will until the final judgment comes. Then we will be given new bodies and new hearts, and there will no longer be any cracks in the lens.
Sincerely,
John Hooyer
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