Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Mystery: Forgiveness
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A co-worker asked me about forgiveness yesterday, and I found myself having a really hard time trying to explain what "counted" as forgiveness, and what was still acceptable feelings. For example, can you still be mad at someone you have forgiven? What does it really mean to forgive someone?
The question stuck in my mind throughout the day, and so I asked my spiritual director later in the evening. His response was that we don't so much understand what forgiveness is with our head, but rather we know when it has occurred in our heart. What he said made me think about forgiveness more as a mystery that a simple truth - much like God himself.
My mind quickly went to the ideas of forgiveness that are most prominent in my evangelical tradition, namely penal substitutionary atonement. I thought about all the simple and easy-to-understand explanations of how God forgives our sin. You know,
"It's like a person who owed a million dollars to the bank, and couldn't pay. So the banker decided to pay the debt with his own money, and so the person was free from debt!"
I thought about all the hours that I spent explaining God's forgiveness of our sins to my students in high school - I drew graphs, made powerpoints, waved my arms and raised my voice, hoping that they would understand exactly what forgiveness is.
But what does it mean to understand forgiveness? We have unpacked and explained the mystery, and thereby stripped it of it's beauty and transformative power. The 20th century playwright Eugene Ionesco statement, "overexplanation separates us from astonishment," is certainly accurate here. When we explain forgiveness, we don't feel it, we don't live it, and it doesn't astonish and amaze us any more.
Has forgiveness, the most mysteriously amazing and transformative truth of the universe, become so commonplace in the life of the Christian that it can be drawn out and explained on a napkin? Has the transformation that comes from forgiveness been reduced to a "sinner's prayer" that can be recited in under a minute?
I hope not. I still don't even really understand what forgiveness is.
A co-worker asked me about forgiveness yesterday, and I found myself having a really hard time trying to explain what "counted" as forgiveness, and what was still acceptable feelings. For example, can you still be mad at someone you have forgiven? What does it really mean to forgive someone?
The question stuck in my mind throughout the day, and so I asked my spiritual director later in the evening. His response was that we don't so much understand what forgiveness is with our head, but rather we know when it has occurred in our heart. What he said made me think about forgiveness more as a mystery that a simple truth - much like God himself.
My mind quickly went to the ideas of forgiveness that are most prominent in my evangelical tradition, namely penal substitutionary atonement. I thought about all the simple and easy-to-understand explanations of how God forgives our sin. You know,
"It's like a person who owed a million dollars to the bank, and couldn't pay. So the banker decided to pay the debt with his own money, and so the person was free from debt!"
I thought about all the hours that I spent explaining God's forgiveness of our sins to my students in high school - I drew graphs, made powerpoints, waved my arms and raised my voice, hoping that they would understand exactly what forgiveness is.
But what does it mean to understand forgiveness? We have unpacked and explained the mystery, and thereby stripped it of it's beauty and transformative power. The 20th century playwright Eugene Ionesco statement, "overexplanation separates us from astonishment," is certainly accurate here. When we explain forgiveness, we don't feel it, we don't live it, and it doesn't astonish and amaze us any more.
Has forgiveness, the most mysteriously amazing and transformative truth of the universe, become so commonplace in the life of the Christian that it can be drawn out and explained on a napkin? Has the transformation that comes from forgiveness been reduced to a "sinner's prayer" that can be recited in under a minute?
I hope not. I still don't even really understand what forgiveness is.
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