He was a little boy on the bus route to school with your mom when they were both kindergartners. Mom was holding in her
hands a craft picture she had made in class, a crude pencil drawing of a bunny rabbit, but it had this going for it, that exactly in
the right place was a glued fluffy cotton ball, and she could not wait to get home to give it to her mommy. As the infamous
Robert got off the bus, he impulsively reached out, grabbed the cotton ball off the picture and went on his merry way! So, the
little girl was left to bring home her disfigured, dismembered bunny rabbit!...............
Why tell this lame little story. After all is it not almost demeaning to illustrate the power
of people to hurt one another, by describing such a small, slice of life detail? There are
a couple of answers actually. First of all, there is the principle that says, ‘never let a
good story go untold simply because of a lack of application! But there are two other
reasons that make this an appropriate intro I think. Was the little girl in the story hurt?
I think so, and was her pain somehow less significant because the stakes were small?
Also, who knows what Robert DeMerrit went on to become. He may have discovered
the cure for cancer. He may right now be rescuing refugees from sinking vessels in the
med. Sea! I have no idea, but I do know this, that after 58 years, the story of the small
hurt that he did on that school bus long ago is still logged in the memory banks of a little
girl who married me 19 years or so later!
There are two reasons that it is not easy to talk about forgiveness or repentance in this
setting. The first reason is that there is actually great debate on this topic. The main
question centers on the question of whether it is possible to forgive when there is no
repentance? And if the answer is ‘no’, then there is another question, ‘ if my
forgiveness is held hostage by the hard heart of my offender, what am I to do?’ The
answer [according to Jay Adams and others] seems to be that we take it to our gracious
heavenly Father and turn over the bitterness of unforgiveness to him, and thereby
cultivate a heart of forgiveness, that we might be ready to grant that forgiveness to our
offender if asked…….. The discussion includes phrases like ‘two party transaction’, promises
with conditions and contractual obligations on the giver and the receiver, and words like
unilateral and process, and concepts like the distinction between ‘covering’ and forgiving…….
Folks, I do not presume to sort any of this out here in a fifteen minute devotional around a
tail gate! [and I bet you may be relieved!] But, it seems to me that a discussion of forgiveness
on that level misses something very important.
There is a second reason that this subject is difficult to talk about and it is a highly personal one.
As I mention the word forgiveness, I understand that for many around this picnic circle, you are
marked by wounds that may never, in this life, heal. The wounds you bear, and possibly the
wounds you have inflicted are heavier and more infected than I am really capable of
understanding.
But fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and come with me if you will to Matthew 18:21-22
[read passage] Here’s what’s going on here. Peter is saying, ‘Lord I get it, forgiveness is at the
heart of the kingdom of heaven. And I have made it a matter of settled conviction that I must
forgive. And if it means forgiving my brother for punching me in the nose as many as seven
times, I am ready to do that! Am I on the right track?’ And Jesus responds in this way, ‘ seven
times?......... Nice try Peter, how about seventy times………………….seven!’ At what point would
you begin to get the idea that the guy punching you in the nose, and who apologizes profusely
every time, and who then does it again, is maybe not sincerely repentant? Jesus is clearly de-
linking our forgiveness from some sort of quid pro quo equation of repentance! More
importantly, and more to the point I think, is that Jesus is suggesting to Peter in crystal clear
terms that forgiveness is not a dance with prescribed maneuvers and protocol. It is not at its
root a conditional process or managed reconciliation. It is rooted in relationship, not with our
adversary but with our savior. It is Peter himself who will very soon have reason to be forgiven,
and his repentance, when it comes can in no way be equal to the nature of the betrayal. Yet
Jesus forgives, and restores Peter, and he does not wait for Peter to attain to a certain level of
sorrow before the wheels of forgiveness can begin to turn. [see John 21]
Let’s look at one more passage, Matt 6:9-15: Jesus teaches his disciples to pray,
Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who have come to an appropriate sense of the gravity of their
crimes against us, and have humbled themselves in confession before us
lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil………
Of course it does not say that, [I can see some of you double checking your translations!] What
is really interesting to me is that Jesus follows this example of prayer with a word of exhortation about
the content, and he focuses squarely on the notion of forgiveness. [vs 14-15] His words are a warning
against a kind of hoarding of forgiveness. It is connected to the caution in James 2:13. “For judgement
is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgement.’
Some observations:
First, it is really interesting to me in the book of Acts that when the gentiles believe, this phrase
is used, ‘repentance has been granted to the gentiles.’ Repentance is granted by the Holy Spirit,
not mustered up. So it is with forgiveness. I have seen it described as an ‘act of the will. ‘ But
that is a description used to make the point that it is not a whipped up emotional response
from the heart as opposed to the intellect. The fact is that both repentance and forgiveness are
granted gifts that in our flesh we have no capacity to engage in. They are the marks of believers
with the indwelling Holy Spirit, compared to which [in all seriousness] walking on water seems
like child’s play!
Second, in Christ we have the tools to really talk about forgiveness with a depth that is not
available to the world in general. We as believers can peel back this onion because forgiveness
and repentance are at the core of our great and powerful good news. I am encouraged when I
think of it like this because it has been said of us, that when we became believers in the Lord
Jesus Christ, [and we are yes?....from Genesis to maps?] we checked our brains at the door! I
love this quote from C.S. Lewis. [quoted in Piper, ‘Brothers we are not professionals’]
God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers. If you are thinking
of becoming a Christian, I warn you that you are embarking on something which is
going to take the whole of you, brains and all. But fortunately, it works the other way
around. Anyone who is honestly trying to be a Christian will soon find his intelligence
being sharpened: one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a
Christian is that Christianity is an education itself.”
Third, does any of us really understand the full implications of our offenses. I am pretty sure
that my children all bear the marks of wounds that I have given them. Am I able to repent in a way
sufficient to equal the weight of the guilt that I bear? To say nothing of my sin against a Holy God! At
one level, it is kind of like trying to divide something by zero. The equation does not work, and when we
view forgiveness as a dance with a willing partner, we will most likely wind up sitting in chairs along the
side of the room watching other people stumble around.
Fourth, we stand in a waterfall of grace. Piper puts it pretty well when he suggests that the
more we become like the Lord Jesus, the more we understand the depth of our debt to his grace.
Issaac Newton [ you know the guy who invented gravity] put it another way….. the more you play
around with the pebbles on beach [your own understanding] the more you realize the vastness of the
ocean. [the universe of knowledge]
Fifth, we do not get bonus points for shrewdness when it comes to forgiveness. It is not as
though we will one day present our forgiveness chips to Jesus and proudly proclaim that we were never
fooled, we were never duped into stupidly granting forgiveness when the repentance was not genuine.
Sixth, powerful words of forgiveness may be the very spark that generates the flame of
repentance. This turns the notion of repentance-forgiveness on its head!
Conclusion: I have just read a horrible little book, which actually won not the Pulitzer prize but
the nobel peace prize back in about 1960, ‘night’ by Elie Wiesel. In it he recounts his tortured
memories and experiences in the death camps of Buchenwald and Auschwitz. He survived but
his mother, father and sister did not. The book is an exquisite picture of the horror that men
are capable of. But for me the most powerful words in the little book do not come from Wiesel,
but from the man who wrote the forward, the Christian, Francois Maruiac, [some French guy
that I do not know, but plan to] He recounts being interviewed by a young jewish reporter, who
himself had experienced the death camps, who had personally seen children hanged by the
neck until they were dead…………The unspoken question is this, do concepts like forgiveness and
repentance have any real meaning in the face of such unspeakable evil? Let me read this to
you…..
“ And I who believe that God is love, what answer was there to give my young
interlocutor whose dark eyes still held the reflection of the angelic sadness that had
appeared one day on the face of a hanged child? What did I say to him? Did I speak to
him of that other jew, this crucified brother who perhaps resembled him and whose
cross conquered the world? Did I explain to him that what had been a stumbling block
for his faith had become a cornerstone for mine? And that the connection between the
cross and human suffering remains, in my view, the key to the unfathomable mystery in
which the faith of his childhood was lost? …….. We do not know the worth of one single
drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the almighty is the almighty, the last
word for each of us belongs to Him. That is what I should have said to the Jewish child.
But all I could do is embrace him and weep.”
Brothers, and sisters in the little flock of Grace Church, might we pray that as we stand
in the waterfall of grace, that our first impulse would be not to parse the particulars of
forgiveness, but rather to embrace one another and weep.
Now, if this seems a little esoteric to some of you, let me conclude in another way, [kind
of like the old which-way books] When I was in high school, I ran cross country, and we
ran at the lagoon in Wheaton, which some of you might know as North side Park. We
ran three circuitous laps and one time on lap two, my coach ran alongside me for about
30 yards or so, and yelled these words at me, ‘Walker, what are you saving it for?’ He
knew exactly what was going on. I was not running to win, I was running to finish, I
was running to minimize pain!..................... I would echo that exhortation, ‘brothers
and sisters, when it comes to forgiveness………’what are you saving it for!’
Amen
hands a craft picture she had made in class, a crude pencil drawing of a bunny rabbit, but it had this going for it, that exactly in
the right place was a glued fluffy cotton ball, and she could not wait to get home to give it to her mommy. As the infamous
Robert got off the bus, he impulsively reached out, grabbed the cotton ball off the picture and went on his merry way! So, the
little girl was left to bring home her disfigured, dismembered bunny rabbit!...............
Why tell this lame little story. After all is it not almost demeaning to illustrate the power
of people to hurt one another, by describing such a small, slice of life detail? There are
a couple of answers actually. First of all, there is the principle that says, ‘never let a
good story go untold simply because of a lack of application! But there are two other
reasons that make this an appropriate intro I think. Was the little girl in the story hurt?
I think so, and was her pain somehow less significant because the stakes were small?
Also, who knows what Robert DeMerrit went on to become. He may have discovered
the cure for cancer. He may right now be rescuing refugees from sinking vessels in the
med. Sea! I have no idea, but I do know this, that after 58 years, the story of the small
hurt that he did on that school bus long ago is still logged in the memory banks of a little
girl who married me 19 years or so later!
There are two reasons that it is not easy to talk about forgiveness or repentance in this
setting. The first reason is that there is actually great debate on this topic. The main
question centers on the question of whether it is possible to forgive when there is no
repentance? And if the answer is ‘no’, then there is another question, ‘ if my
forgiveness is held hostage by the hard heart of my offender, what am I to do?’ The
answer [according to Jay Adams and others] seems to be that we take it to our gracious
heavenly Father and turn over the bitterness of unforgiveness to him, and thereby
cultivate a heart of forgiveness, that we might be ready to grant that forgiveness to our
offender if asked…….. The discussion includes phrases like ‘two party transaction’, promises
with conditions and contractual obligations on the giver and the receiver, and words like
unilateral and process, and concepts like the distinction between ‘covering’ and forgiving…….
Folks, I do not presume to sort any of this out here in a fifteen minute devotional around a
tail gate! [and I bet you may be relieved!] But, it seems to me that a discussion of forgiveness
on that level misses something very important.
There is a second reason that this subject is difficult to talk about and it is a highly personal one.
As I mention the word forgiveness, I understand that for many around this picnic circle, you are
marked by wounds that may never, in this life, heal. The wounds you bear, and possibly the
wounds you have inflicted are heavier and more infected than I am really capable of
understanding.
But fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and come with me if you will to Matthew 18:21-22
[read passage] Here’s what’s going on here. Peter is saying, ‘Lord I get it, forgiveness is at the
heart of the kingdom of heaven. And I have made it a matter of settled conviction that I must
forgive. And if it means forgiving my brother for punching me in the nose as many as seven
times, I am ready to do that! Am I on the right track?’ And Jesus responds in this way, ‘ seven
times?......... Nice try Peter, how about seventy times………………….seven!’ At what point would
you begin to get the idea that the guy punching you in the nose, and who apologizes profusely
every time, and who then does it again, is maybe not sincerely repentant? Jesus is clearly de-
linking our forgiveness from some sort of quid pro quo equation of repentance! More
importantly, and more to the point I think, is that Jesus is suggesting to Peter in crystal clear
terms that forgiveness is not a dance with prescribed maneuvers and protocol. It is not at its
root a conditional process or managed reconciliation. It is rooted in relationship, not with our
adversary but with our savior. It is Peter himself who will very soon have reason to be forgiven,
and his repentance, when it comes can in no way be equal to the nature of the betrayal. Yet
Jesus forgives, and restores Peter, and he does not wait for Peter to attain to a certain level of
sorrow before the wheels of forgiveness can begin to turn. [see John 21]
Let’s look at one more passage, Matt 6:9-15: Jesus teaches his disciples to pray,
Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who have come to an appropriate sense of the gravity of their
crimes against us, and have humbled themselves in confession before us
lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil………
Of course it does not say that, [I can see some of you double checking your translations!] What
is really interesting to me is that Jesus follows this example of prayer with a word of exhortation about
the content, and he focuses squarely on the notion of forgiveness. [vs 14-15] His words are a warning
against a kind of hoarding of forgiveness. It is connected to the caution in James 2:13. “For judgement
is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgement.’
Some observations:
First, it is really interesting to me in the book of Acts that when the gentiles believe, this phrase
is used, ‘repentance has been granted to the gentiles.’ Repentance is granted by the Holy Spirit,
not mustered up. So it is with forgiveness. I have seen it described as an ‘act of the will. ‘ But
that is a description used to make the point that it is not a whipped up emotional response
from the heart as opposed to the intellect. The fact is that both repentance and forgiveness are
granted gifts that in our flesh we have no capacity to engage in. They are the marks of believers
with the indwelling Holy Spirit, compared to which [in all seriousness] walking on water seems
like child’s play!
Second, in Christ we have the tools to really talk about forgiveness with a depth that is not
available to the world in general. We as believers can peel back this onion because forgiveness
and repentance are at the core of our great and powerful good news. I am encouraged when I
think of it like this because it has been said of us, that when we became believers in the Lord
Jesus Christ, [and we are yes?....from Genesis to maps?] we checked our brains at the door! I
love this quote from C.S. Lewis. [quoted in Piper, ‘Brothers we are not professionals’]
God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers. If you are thinking
of becoming a Christian, I warn you that you are embarking on something which is
going to take the whole of you, brains and all. But fortunately, it works the other way
around. Anyone who is honestly trying to be a Christian will soon find his intelligence
being sharpened: one of the reasons why it needs no special education to be a
Christian is that Christianity is an education itself.”
Third, does any of us really understand the full implications of our offenses. I am pretty sure
that my children all bear the marks of wounds that I have given them. Am I able to repent in a way
sufficient to equal the weight of the guilt that I bear? To say nothing of my sin against a Holy God! At
one level, it is kind of like trying to divide something by zero. The equation does not work, and when we
view forgiveness as a dance with a willing partner, we will most likely wind up sitting in chairs along the
side of the room watching other people stumble around.
Fourth, we stand in a waterfall of grace. Piper puts it pretty well when he suggests that the
more we become like the Lord Jesus, the more we understand the depth of our debt to his grace.
Issaac Newton [ you know the guy who invented gravity] put it another way….. the more you play
around with the pebbles on beach [your own understanding] the more you realize the vastness of the
ocean. [the universe of knowledge]
Fifth, we do not get bonus points for shrewdness when it comes to forgiveness. It is not as
though we will one day present our forgiveness chips to Jesus and proudly proclaim that we were never
fooled, we were never duped into stupidly granting forgiveness when the repentance was not genuine.
Sixth, powerful words of forgiveness may be the very spark that generates the flame of
repentance. This turns the notion of repentance-forgiveness on its head!
Conclusion: I have just read a horrible little book, which actually won not the Pulitzer prize but
the nobel peace prize back in about 1960, ‘night’ by Elie Wiesel. In it he recounts his tortured
memories and experiences in the death camps of Buchenwald and Auschwitz. He survived but
his mother, father and sister did not. The book is an exquisite picture of the horror that men
are capable of. But for me the most powerful words in the little book do not come from Wiesel,
but from the man who wrote the forward, the Christian, Francois Maruiac, [some French guy
that I do not know, but plan to] He recounts being interviewed by a young jewish reporter, who
himself had experienced the death camps, who had personally seen children hanged by the
neck until they were dead…………The unspoken question is this, do concepts like forgiveness and
repentance have any real meaning in the face of such unspeakable evil? Let me read this to
you…..
“ And I who believe that God is love, what answer was there to give my young
interlocutor whose dark eyes still held the reflection of the angelic sadness that had
appeared one day on the face of a hanged child? What did I say to him? Did I speak to
him of that other jew, this crucified brother who perhaps resembled him and whose
cross conquered the world? Did I explain to him that what had been a stumbling block
for his faith had become a cornerstone for mine? And that the connection between the
cross and human suffering remains, in my view, the key to the unfathomable mystery in
which the faith of his childhood was lost? …….. We do not know the worth of one single
drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the almighty is the almighty, the last
word for each of us belongs to Him. That is what I should have said to the Jewish child.
But all I could do is embrace him and weep.”
Brothers, and sisters in the little flock of Grace Church, might we pray that as we stand
in the waterfall of grace, that our first impulse would be not to parse the particulars of
forgiveness, but rather to embrace one another and weep.
Now, if this seems a little esoteric to some of you, let me conclude in another way, [kind
of like the old which-way books] When I was in high school, I ran cross country, and we
ran at the lagoon in Wheaton, which some of you might know as North side Park. We
ran three circuitous laps and one time on lap two, my coach ran alongside me for about
30 yards or so, and yelled these words at me, ‘Walker, what are you saving it for?’ He
knew exactly what was going on. I was not running to win, I was running to finish, I
was running to minimize pain!..................... I would echo that exhortation, ‘brothers
and sisters, when it comes to forgiveness………’what are you saving it for!’
Amen