"I don't get mad. I get even." I don't remember the first time that I heard someone utter those words, but unfortunately it was not the last time...or even close to the last time. Over my years of ministry I have watched some of the most loving, considerate, self-sacrificing people be eaten up by anger over some past injustice. They have never been able to let go of some hurt that has been done to them. This causes them to obsess over ways to get even...to make the other person hurt as much as they have been hurt.
This sense of getting revenge, of getting even, is a particularly human trait. Animals don't get even. A lion comes and eats a young gazelle...the other gazelles don't come together, form a lynch mob and go after the lion. That kind of life and death is simply part of the way the lion-gazelle world works. Humans on the other hand have this amazing ability to take everything personally, hold grudges and desire revenge. There are places in the world (Balkans, Middle East, and Northern Ireland for example) where grudges have been maintained for hundreds of years and are ready to explode into ethnic violence at a moment's notice. What people seem to have failed to notice however is that the revenge of one person or one ethnic group upon another never accomplishes anything. It only engenders more anger and hate. It destroys rather than heals.
As we consider God as forgiving this may be a good place to begin. It is a good place to begin because it will allow us to see the purposes behind God's forgiveness. One of the concepts that I have been presenting from the outset of these articles is that God has a plan for the world. The plan is that human beings will become capable of loving God, loving one another and caring for creation. Sin (meaning choices and actions which lead away from loving) tears at the heart of God's plan. Sin breaks relationships and distorts them in ways that do not allow for loving relationships between persons and between persons and God. Sin runs counter to God's plan. Somehow then sin needs to be dealt with.
Many of us assume that the way God dealt with sin varied between the Old Testament and the New Testament (sort of pre and post Jesus). In the Old Testament God dealt with sin through punishment (fire and brimstone kind of stuff). In the New Testament God dealt with sin by sending Jesus who offered us forgiveness. While that is the assumption of many, even a cursory glance at the Old Testament will show that forgiveness has always been God's modus operandi. We can see this clearly even in Genesis. Adam and Eve disobey God. They sin. So how does God deal with this sin? God makes them suffer the consequences of their actions, but then God forgives them. We see this in the fact that even after expulsion from the garden God makes them clothes and cares for them. The same is true of Cain and Able. Cain slays Able and lies to God. God does not zap Cain with a bolt of lightning or turn him into a newt. God forgives Cain and protects him. While I can only speculate as to why God would do this (other than it is the very nature of God to forgive) I will do so anyway.
First God's forgiveness allows for restored relationships. As I mentioned above, God desires to be in right relationship with us. If God cannot forgive then our relationship with God will always be broken. We, as sinful human beings, do not have the capacity to be "good enough" to maintain our relationship with God (or with anyone else for that matter). God's forgiveness allows our relationship with God to be renewed and restored. Second God's forgiveness allows us to make new beginnings. Consider for a moment what it would be like to be in a relationship with God (or again with anyone else) where there was no forgiveness; where God always brought up the things we had done wrong. The only way in which we would see ourselves then would be as losers; as those who could do no right. Thus we would be trapped in our old sinful way of living life. Forgiveness, however allows us to leave behind our past and start over. Forgiveness gives us the chance to love God and others more fully this time than last. Thus we become more like the people God wants us to become.
We are fortunate that the God of this universe is one who forgives. We are fortunate that God forgives not only one time, but an inexhaustible number of times. We are fortunate that forgiveness is at the very heart of God. The challenge for us then is to believe that this forgiveness is real and allow it to set us free to daily live new and loving lives.
Next week: God and Creation
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