Forgiveness

We are meeting this coming Sunday, November 8th at 7:00 PM at Appalachian Brewing Company on Cameron Street in Harrisburg. 

This week's topic was suggested by Mandy and I think it is a good one.  She saw and episode of House that made her wonder about forgiveness.  Here's the scenario from House:

One of the doctors goes to confession, feeling guilty about killing an African dictator who was planning to slaughter thousands of people the moment he got better, even though he felt it was, morally, the right thing to do. The priest was pretty rigid on the issue, saying unless he confessed and went to prison for the rest of his life, God would not forgive him.

Here is a reading from Wishful Thinking, a book by Frederick Buechner a pastor and writer:

To forgive somebody is to say one way or another, "You have done something uspeakable, and by all rights I should call it quits between us.  Both my pride and my principles demand no less.  However, although I make no guarantees that will be able to forget what you've done, and though we may both carry scars for life, I refuse to let it stand between us....to accept forgiveness means to admit that you've done something unspeakable that needs to be forgiven, and thus both parties must swallow the same thing:  their pride. 

This seems to explain what Jesus means when he says to God, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."  Jesus is not saying that God's forgiveness is conditional upon our forgiving others.  In the first place, forgiveness that's conditional isn't really forgiveness at all, just Fair Warning; and in the second place, our unforgivingness is among those things about us which we need to have God forgive us must.  What Jesus apparently is saying is that the pride which keeps us from forgiving is the same pride which keeps us from accepting forgiveness, and will God please help us to do something about it. 

When someone you've wronged forgives you, you're spared the dull and self-diminishing throb of a guilty conscience. 

When you forgive somebody who has wronged you, you're spared the dismal corrosion of bitterness and wounded pride. 

For both parties, forgiveness means the freedom again to be at peace inside their own skins and to be glad in each other's presence."

Here are some questions to ponder:

1. What do you think of the priest's reaction? 
2. How are consequences and forgiveness related?
3. How does forgiveness change us?  What does it offer? 
4. Does one have to "pay the consequences" in order to be forgiven?
5. How does God's forgiveness relate to our forgiveness of one another?
6. How easy is it for you to forgive?  Both big and little things. 
7. What does it matter that God forgives you?

Comments

[Drew]

It is interesting you choose this topic this week. I was just discussing with a Soldier the difference between forgiveness and repentance. I would submit to the group that the very word repentance seems to lost it’s luster, it’s power in the protestant churches. Why do you suppose that is? Is it because forgiveness is easier than repentance? Is it because like the priest in the show we’d rather fix on things we can do than placing our faith in the work that has once and forever been done by the Lord Jesus Christ?

See repentance is turning around. It is a change from the current state to something else. It is hearing the Master’s voice from behind, “this is the way walk ye in it” and turning to the voice away from sin, away from the world, and the lusts of the flesh.

Forgiveness is something all together different.

This is true forgiveness. Picture yourself coming home after a long day. As you enter the house you see with your own eyes a man brutally murder your family. You are naturally enraged with a blood lust that must be satisfied. You chase him and eventually this man is caught by the police and put in prison. The day of his trial arrives. You seek justice, naturally. Your highest aim is to see what was oh so very wrong made right. The attorneys do their legal dance, with a mountain of evidence including your own testimony this is the murderer. His callousness and calculations are laid bare. There can be no doubt of his guilt. At the end of the trial the judge tells the defendant to stand to be sentenced. He says to this man who in cold blood took the lives of those whom you loved, you are forgiven, you may go home.

What is your reply? You might say, the judge is out of his mind. He has failed the people. The system is broken, any number of things but alas, you cannot change his mind.

You see the criminal is you. The crimes, the mountain of evidence against you is clear and ever growing. The prosecution is an angel of the highest order and class that says to the Ancient of Days, do you see what is in his heart? Do you see what she just did? They deserve death, they have broken your law. The judge is the owner of heaven and earth. The sentence was carried out on His precious Son at Calvary. The holy one who knew no sin, was made sin for me. Cursed stripped, scourged, spit upon, beaten, nailed to a tree, the very worst mankind could muster was poured out on Him. Yet a still greater trial, when he cried Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Let us wonder; grace and justice
Join and point to mercy's store;
When through grace in Christ our trust is,
Justice smiles and asks no more:
He Who washed us with His blood
Has secured our way to God.

That friends is forgiveness. If the Spirit of God has quickened you, repent of your sins, turn away from them and place your faith in the finished work of Christ Jesus our Lord, knowing your sins are forgiven.