Sent to send away

Lately, I've been struggling with this idea of forgiveness.  With the recent attacks in Boston, I've been moved to ask, "How can we forgive? And what does that look like?"  I don't know about you, but forgiveness is one of the hardest things I'm called to do as a Christian.  I'm often not even sure what it looks like.  I often hear the platitude "Forgive and forget" all the time, but that seems entirely unhelpful when you're in the moment and need to forgive.  It seems that there is even difficulty understanding what forgiveness is and what it includes.  The Greek word used for forgiveness has helped me understand forgiveness in a light.  The word in the Greek is ἀφίημι which translated literally means "to send away."  Whenever Jesus uses it to express his forgiveness he is saying that he has sent away their sins from them.  Their sins are no longer a part of them.  Meditate on that for a second.  The prostitutes that he drank with and the tax collectors that he ate with were entrenched in sin.  Yet Jesus went on to forgive and in so doing he sent away their sins.  When Jesus asks us to forgive he asks us to do the same that he did with others.  Deep within us, we know that we are meant to follow after him, but certainly there are few, if any, more difficult things to do than to love our enemies and forgive them.

In trying to find compassion for my enemies, I was drawn to the passage of the master and the two servants.  One day the master calls in one of his servants.  This servant has borrowed from the master a large fortune and the master has called to collect.  After pleading with the master for mercy, the master decides to forgive the debt.  The same servant then leaves and finds another servant who owes him a small amount of money.  In the exchange the forgiven servant withholds forgiveness for the one that owes him money and throws him in jail.  I was moved by this, because this is what we do every time we fail to forgive.  You see, somehow we often try to say that Jesus forgave those who were torturing him.  We forget that Jesus was tortured for the sins of the world and it was my sins that held him on the cross.  Jesus forgave me, sending away my sins away from me.  How then can I withhold my forgivness when I have been forgiven so much?  As I meditated on this a bit more, I realized that through a deeper understanding of the debt that I owed and the great act of mercy and grace that has been done for me I can find compassion in that place for my enemies.

The apostle Paul once called himself the chief of sinners and yet he modeled Christ to the point where he was able to say, "Imitate me as I imitate Christ."  I think Paul realized that the key to forgiveness and compassion is to see ourselves as truly forgiven and to constantly recall that fact. We must remember who we were as prodigal sons and experience and understand the reality of God's love for us.  By holding the two in sight we realize that we are entitled to nothing and have been given everything.  So if this is true in our lives, should we not then extend that love to others?  It is through our compassion for one another and for the world that they will know we are followers of Christ.  We have been commissioned and sent by God for a specific purpose.  Our sins have been sent away from us in order that we might participate in God's work of sending away the sins of the world.  May we never forget how far Christ descended in order to raise us to life.

 

My rendition of Rembrant's Return of the Prodigal Son