Forgiveness – Dr. Kirk Lewis

No Longer Bent

Background Passages: Luke 13:10-17 and I John 1:8-9

I like to think I’m related to him. After all, we all would like to be related to someone famous.

C.S. Lewis, one of the 20th century’s most dynamic apologists of the Christian faith, is best known in the modern world as the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, a story rich in Christian symbolism. I first encountered his writings when I read The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity in college. The former an intriguing look at how Satan manipulates us; the latter a deep presentation of the validity of Christianity and what the life of a Christian is like.

He penned a lesser known book called Out of the Silent Planet. Similar to Narnia, it is a science fiction book written in the 1930s in which his protagonist journeys to another world. Like Narnia, he weaves Christian symbolism through the pages of Silent Planet. I admit I’ve only read snippets of this book, but within its pages Lewis uses his space traveler to explain sin to a people who never heard the concept.

After searching for a definition that would make sense to these aliens, the hero settled on the words “bent” and “bound.” Lewis defined sin as “misshapen.” “Not the way we were made to be.” “Not fit for our intended purpose.”

It is as good a definition as any. When a nail is bent, it cannot be hammered unless it is straightened. When an arrow is bent, it cannot fly straight. When we are bent, we are not shaped in the way God intended us to be. Lewis speaks of the sinner as one bound. Tied up. Unable to shake free. Trapped.

To paraphrase Romans, “For all are bent, and fall short of God’s glory.”

I’m writing today, recognizing my “bentness.” Okay, I made up that word, but you get the point. Sin makes us uncomfortable. We don’t like to think about our failings. While we know we sin, we also know that we don’t sin constantly. That we do some things right. We want to focus on that to make ourselves feel a bit better.

Here’s the truth about sin, however. When we break our arm, the rest of our body still functions as designed. We are not capable of doing everything we want to do until the arm is healed. Sin works the same way. While we can still do some good things, as long as sin is in our lives, we aren’t everything God needs us to be. We are not fit for our intended purpose.

Thank God his forgiveness is not just a heavenly thing that comes at the end of our time. Forgiveness is a daily gift for those who seek it.

Luke may not have written this story with that in mind, but it made me think again that God doesn’t wish for us to live bent and bound by sin. Look at Luke 13.

Jesus sat among the people in a local synagogue on the Sabbath, likely at the invitation of the local church officials who were somewhat excited to have this popular rabbi passing through their village. Chances are Jesus had never taught in this synagogue. He probably didn’t know too many people in the crowd. Teaching in the synagogue was simply his practice during his earthly ministry. Something he wanted to do. Something he enjoyed.

In the middle of his dialogue with the people about some passage of scripture, a woman captured Jesus’ attention, stopping him in mid-sentence. In those seconds of silence, you can hear the rustle of robes as the crowd turns to follow Jesus’ gaze.

What Jesus saw broke his heart. He swallowed a wave of overwhelming, God-inspired empathy. A lump of emotion filled his throat and the tears well up in his eyes.

“…a woman was there, crippled by a spirit for 18 years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.” (Luke 13:11)

When you picture this woman, you have to picture a posture more than stooped. The curvature of her spine forced her shoulders forward and downward. Bent at the waist, hobbling on unsteady legs and a knobby walking stick. Unable to lift her head above her horizon. The woman lived with a stark debilitation that left her crippled and unable to function.

As Jesus’ voice trailed off, he watched as the woman shuffled for her seat along the wall. She didn’t approach Jesus. Made no request of him. She didn’t proclaim her faith in him as a miracle worker. She just wanted to sit to take the burden off her feet and her back.

The rustle of robes returns as the crowd turns back to Jesus, as if to say, “It’s just Miriam. She’s been like that forever.” They know her. They have seen her around the village. Some of them probably even checked on her from time to time.

“Miriam,” my name for her, does today what she has probably done every Sabbath for the past 18 years. There is no indication in scripture that this was an unusual event. No indication that today the spirit moved her to get out of bed and make the difficult journey to the synagogue.

She came, as she always did, to be taught. To worship and learn. Today was no different. She probably didn’t even now there would be a guest teacher in the pulpit. This was just her place on the Sabbath. Jesus called her a “daughter of Abraham” in verse 16, possibly recognizing that this was her faithful pattern on the Sabbath, the place she needed and wanted to be on any Lord’s day.

In the midst of the ordinary, something extraordinary happened in this synagogue on this day.

Jesus swallowed the lump in his throat, choking back his emotion. He stood and called to her before she sat down, asking her to come forward. With difficulty she tilted her head to see who called out to her. As she looked sidelong at Jesus, she sidled slowly, and probably a bit suspiciously, his direction until she stood, hunched over in front of him.

Jesus dropped to a knee with his hand lightly on her shoulder, the tilt of his head matching hers until he looks her in the eyes.

His word is simple. His intent clear.

“Woman, you are set free from you infirmity. He put his hands upon her; and immediately she straightened up and praised God.”

The woman came to God’s house bent and broken, bound by her affliction. Jesus set her free. The root word in Greek for “set free” is to “loosen” or “untie.” She was no longer bent by or bound to her ailment. She had been released from almost two decades of physical torment.

Jesus set her free, released her from her bonds, not because she begged him to, but because he wanted to. He set her free because he wanted her to be free. To be what God intended her to be. It was, after all, the reason he came.

I find that an excellent illustration of our sin and God’s forgiveness. C. S. Lewis says sin misshapes us. Leaves us bent and broken. Paul talks about being bound in sin. Tied up and shackled by it. A slave to it.

I think when Jesus sees us bound in our sin, he still gets that same lump in his throat. That same overwhelming sense of empathy that he learned while hanging on a cross. It is what compelled him to die for us…an empathic love that says, “I can’t stand to see you this way.”

It is what keeps him reminding us, through his spirit, that God stands ready to forgive our sins.

God does not wait for us to come to grips with our bent and misshapen selves. Through Jesus Christ, he called us to himself, looked us in the eye, and took the full burden of our “bentness” all the way to Calvary. In doing so, he said to us, “Straighten up. You are set free.”

Once set free, we can respond as this woman did and praise God who loves us.

But, there is another character in this story. The administrator of the synagogue, the one responsible for proper protocol, objected indignantly to the healing. He quieted the crowd with a stern, “holier-than-thou” stare and a thunderous exclamation.

Rather than challenge this upstart rabbi directly, he turned his back to Jesus and admonished the astonished crowd for getting excited about a breach in protocol, putting Jesus in his place and indirectly chastising the woman whom Jesus healed.

In the arrogant tone of the righteously misguided, he said, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”

Protocol over people. Ritual over right.

Jesus would have none of it.

“You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water?” (Luke 13:15)

There’s that word again. The word Jesus used when he told the woman she had been “set free” from her disability, is the same word translated “untie” in this passage. He’s saying, “You willing set your donkey free on the Sabbath to give him a drink. Yet, you balk at setting this woman free from an 18-year trauma.”

Jesus said it better than I did. He said,

“Then should not this woman, this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for 18 long years, be set free (untied, released) on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” (Luke 13:16)

Here’s the kicker in this part of the story. We see clearly that the woman was set free, but what of the church official. His strict adherence to a distorted interpretation of scripture and church tradition, left him criticizing when he ought to be celebrating. His objection revealed just how bent out of shape he was. Revealed the sin in his life.

You have to wonder about the administrator. I wonder how many times this poor woman sought his prayers for healing over 18 years. I wonder if seeing her every Sabbath and now seeing her healed shamed him for his failure to invoke God’s healing.

This poor church official fell victim to a distorted spiritual view that at times inflicts all of us. C. S. Lewis said, “Those of us who do not think about our own sins make up for it by thinking incessantly about the sins of others.” It was and is a myopic view.

This church official, like me at times, got so busy “doing church” that he “did no good.” He could not recognize that his reliance on ritual blinded him to his own “bentness.” Bound to sin he didn’t know he had. Thinking that his body was functioning at 100 percent efficiency without acknowledging that his arm was broken.

When faced with our own sin, we have two choices.

We can fail to recognize that we are as bent spiritually as this woman was physically. Without recognizing our hypocrisy and seeking God’s forgiveness, we remain tied and bound to the sin.

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us…” (I John 1:8)

Or…

We can recognize our misshapen selves. That we are living in a way that is not what God intended. A burdened, but repentant heart that stands hunched over before God seeking his forgiveness and willing to accept the grace gift of his forgiveness.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9)

The attitude of the contrite gives God the chance to put his hand lightly on our shoulder and tell us to straighten up. It is a moment for praising God and celebrating our new freedom in him.

When we have been untied from the sin in our lives, Jesus gives us the opportunity to be “surprised by joy,” to use again the words of C. S. Lewis. The woman in our story praised the one who set her free.

I’m grateful for my God who is relentless in his desire to forgive.

What Does the Lord Require?

Background Passages: Deuteronomy 10:12; Micah 6:8; Matthew 22:37-39

I find myself saddened and distraught by the events of the past week. The senseless death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer who forgot what it means to “protect and serve” is unnerving on so many levels. The understandable protests demand desperately needed changes in our sense of justice for all people.

Of all the words spoken in the past week, this, it seems, is the core of my distress in these tumultuous times.

Every parent…every grandparent worries about the health and safety of their children and grandchildren. The worries never really end no matter how old those children or grandchildren might be. As a white man in American, one thing I’ve never really worried about is losing a son, daughter, grandson or granddaughter at the hands of a police officer. Never. It is, however, a burden too many of my African-American friends experience every day.

Positive change must come. Of that I’m certain. It must. However, the solutions are not easy. Nothing of magnitude ever is. The root causes run deep in a complicated and almost overwhelming flood of political, social, psychological, emotional and spiritual issues that won’t go away by burying our heads in the sand. Complicated and overwhelming as these issues may be, God’s world will never reflect his will for his people until we find the answers.

During the last 10 years of my professional life as superintendent in a public school system, I felt an enormous sense of responsibility. I taped on my desk in a spot visible only to me a card with one of my favorite Bible verses to remind me that every decision I made impacted a life somewhere. The card, from Micah 6:8 read,

“He has shown you, o mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Whether I was fully obedient to that challenge during my 10-year tenure is best left to God and to those I tried to serve, but I read that verse often as I struggled to make fair and equitable decisions.

In days like those in which we live today, I think this verse is a good starting point for all of us. It is the core passage of this study. It is a common theme of the Bible for a life lived by faith.

Freed from the oppression and slavery of the Egyptians, the Hebrew people followed Moses on a long march toward the promised land in Canaan. They experienced the parting of the Red Sea to escape an army intent on killing them. Water from a rock to quench their thirst. Manna from heaven to quell their hunger. A whirlwind to guide them by day and a fire to direct them by night. Miracles in the desert.

Despite all they had seen, despite all God had done for them, they grumbled. Then, on the threshold of the promised land, they blinked again, turning away from the one who brought them there.

Moses climbed the mountain to hear from God who provided for his people a code by which they could live. Ten commandments to govern their relationships with the Creator and with their fellow man. While he was gone, the Hebrew people took matters into their own hands and cobbled together enough gold to fashion an idol they could worship.

That act of rebellion led to another 40 years wandering and wondering in the wilderness.

At the end of that time, Moses again climbed the mountain to receive the word from God. God handed down the same commandments again. God’s will for all of us written on two stone tablets. Moses returned and stood before his people. He knew how hardhearted his people could be. He had seen them at their worst. Before reading to them the commandments of God, he tried to help them understand their responsibility under their covenant with the Father.

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good.” (Deuteronomy 10:12)

We see those words for the first time. “…What does the Lord require of you?”

Hundreds of years later, the prophet Micah stood before the people of Israel who had once again charted their own course, living a life of rebellion and disobedience. They worship just about anything and anyone but God. Micah called upon them to repent. To turn back to God and their covenant with him. His instruction was clear and plain.

“…what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

The passages in Deuteronomy and Micah are remarkably similar. However, Bible scholars the English word “require” used in both passages are different words in the Hebrew language with different meanings. In Deuteronomy, the Hebrew word carries the idea of inquiring. It seems to say, “What does the Lord ask of you?” In Micah the word speaks to a mandate, a command. “What does the Lord demand of you.”

When I ask you for something, you have a choice. You can do what I ask or walk away. I look at the passage in Deuteronomy and I see God’s gift of free will at play. God asks that I fear him…hold him and his power in awestruck reverence, knowing that he is worthy of my praise.

God asks that I be obedient to his will. That I follow his lead throughout my life. To do what is right in his eyes, He asks that I love him and serve him with my total being. A complete commitment to his will and way that penetrates my heart and soul and guides my every action.

He asks those things of every one of us, but we have a choice to put our faith and trust in him or to walk away. He asks us to follow him, but he will never force us to do so. We have that free will choice.

The passage in Deuteronomy speaks to our relationship to God. It speaks to the internal change that occurs in our heart and soul when we open ourselves up to a relationship with God, the Father. We are to be transformed in heart and soul and deed.

Things change for us when we make that commitment. Once we place our faith and trust in him, God demands a certain standard of behavior toward others. This is not an option for a believer. If we call ourselves one of his children, he insists that our interactions with others reflect his character. He demands us to live a godly life. The word Micah speaks tells us how we are to embrace the world around us. It tells us how we are to act in relationship with one another regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, social level or life situation.

As a child of God we are required to act justly. In a general sense to be just is to be righteous. To do what is right in all things so that everything is as it should be…as God intended. To act justly then is to recognize our duty toward God with respect to our relationship to all others. That God calls us to “act justly” means we must see our fellow man as God sees him, according him the respect for his rights…his life, property and reputation.

I Peter 2:17 says we are to “honor all men.” In our relationship to others, we are to reflect the justice and righteousness of God. In every decision we make. In all that we do. We are to apply fairness and equality as the basis of our actions toward others.

It is not enough to talk about justice for all. It is not enough to call for the end of injustice. We can’t just give it lip service. God demands we act justly.

Similarly, it is not enough just to be merciful. To talk about mercy and forgiveness. We must love mercy. That’s taking our relationships to a whole, new level.

Mercy is the forgiveness and grace of God extended to us and then through us to those who have wronged us. Other passages in the Bible reinforce the thought.

“Be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ sake has forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:32)

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)

“Forgive us our trespasses even as we forgive those who trespass against us.” (Matthew 6:12)

It is mercy, that Christian grace, that allows us to look at each other in love regardless of the circumstances between us. It is the recognition that each of us has been breathed to life by a God who loves us equally and without reservation. Mercy is an act of godly love expressed to all others through the words and deeds. Mercy is the compelling force of God’s love that enables us to act justly.

Finally, God demands that we walk humbly with God. To walk with God is to stay by his side throughout this life journey. To never stray from the path down which he is leading. To be obedient in all things.

To walk humbly recognizes our place. No one who encountered God in scripture walked away with an inflated sense of personal pride or power. All were humbled.

Moses took off his sandals and buried his face in the sand to avoid looking at the burning bush. Isaiah saw God and cried, “Woe is me!” Daniel had a vision of God and declared, “My beauty has turned to corruption.”

Humility is the Christian grace that makes one think of himself no more highly than he should. An attitude that does not allow one to consider himself better than another. We cannot simply declare ourselves humble. We must walk it. Live it. Be it. Sincerely and without guile.

It is the indwelling presence of the spirit of God that humbles us and gives us the servant heart and the loving eyes of Christ that made no distinction between Jew or Gentile, black or white, rich or poor. Humility is washing the feet of another. Feeding the hungry. Clothing the naked. Visiting the prisoner. Standing up for the oppressed. And it is essential to faithful discipleship.

Jesus sat with a questioning Pharisee who asked him to identify the greatest commandments. Jesus didn’t hesitate. He didn’t need to analyze the pros and cons of each of God’s commands. His answer was immediate for these two governed all others.

“The most important,” Jesus answered, “is this one, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ And, the second is this, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Matthew 22:37-39)

The trauma of the past few days is real, especially for our African American friends who live it every day. Steps have been made over the years toward social justice, but it is an unfinished work. More must be done.

There are political and social answers to the issues that face our country. They are complex and difficult. Substantive changes in our country will not occur until we, as believers in Christ , comply with the demands of God to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with him.

The necessary changes will come only when we learn to love our neighbors as ourselves, regardless of their color.

It will not be easy because we are flawed people. The apostle Paul understood his nature and the nature of man.

“For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” Romans 7:18b-19

Paul also understood that despite his shortcomings he could not quit trying to live the life he knew God demanded of him. After 30 years in God’s service he wrote an encouraging word to the Philippian church. It is a word that resonates as I think of my responsibilities as a work in progress toward a more just world for all people.

“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining for what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize to which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14

I press on to live a Christ-like, spirit-filled life. If enough of us do that, we change the face of justice in our country. Our desire to have our country be a place of social justice and equity is an unfinished and important work. We all have a role to play to make this the country God desires it to be.

Justice. Mercy. Humility. Let’s press on.

Seven Times Seventy

Background: Matthew 18:21-35, I Corinthians 13:5, Ephesians 4:31-32; Luke 6:27-28; Isaiah 43:25

The story may be apocryphal, which means regardless of how much I want it to be true, it probably isn’t. Still, no one wants to let a good story interfere with a great illustration of spiritual truth.

Renaissance man, Leonardo da Vinci painted The Last Supper as a fresco for the Dominican monastery Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan between 1495 and 1498. It depicts that intriguing moment during that last meal in the upper room when Jesus tells the disciples that one of them will betray him.

Da Vinci felt that “notions of the mind” could be seen in a man’s posture, mannerisms and expressions. Therefore, the expressions on each face of the disciples reveal da Vinci’s interpretation of how each disciple might have reacted based upon their personalities.

The story goes that at the time the artist painted The Last Supper, a bitter feud erupted between da Vinci and a fellow painter. Da Vinci despised the man.

When da Vinci painted the face of Judas Iscariot at the table with Jesus, he used the face of this enemy so that it would be present for ages as the man who betrayed Jesus.

As he worked on the faces of the other disciples, he tried time and time again to paint the face of Jesus, but nothing he depicted felt right.

Over time he realized that his hatred for the other painter kept him from finishing the face of Jesus. Da Vinci sought out and made peace with this fellow painter, erasing his features from the fresco and repainting the face of Judas. Only then was he able to paint the face of Jesus and complete his masterpiece.

Whether the story is true or false, it begs the question. Is our hatred for another, for what they have done to hurt us, keeping us from seeing clearly the face of Jesus? Are our ill feelings for another obstructing our relationship with Christ?

To their credit, the disciples who followed Jesus listened. They had difficulty at times understanding, but they heard what he said. They asked questions. They learned…sometimes the hard way.

In the days immediately following the transfiguration experience, Jesus continued teaching the disciples things they would need to know after his death and resurrection. Given the hostility he knew they would face when he was gone, Jesus spent a lot of time talking about forgiveness.

The Pharisees wrote it down, buried in the numerous laws they added to Jewish life. Their laws told them that one must extend forgiveness to another person three times. Beyond that, if the person offended you a fourth time, your personal grace obligation disappeared. You could simply wipe the dust off his sandals and cut that person out of your life. You had done your part.

At one point, Peter, in an effort to impress Jesus with his gracious spirit, asked and answered the question he was sure would bring him praise.

“Lord, how often should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

Peter’s thought seemed to be, “If I just double what the law requires and add one for good measure, I’ll be seen as magnanimous and gracious.”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seven times seventy.”

Jesus’ thought seemed to be, “How can you not extend forgiveness to anyone who offends you no matter how many times they hurt you since God forgives your every sin?”

Thus began another great parable about kingdom living which taught that forgiveness ought to be a reflection of the mercy God extends to us each and every day.

The story Jesus tells Peter and the other disciples talks about the man who owed his master an enormous debt he could not repay. Touched by the man’s appeal for mercy, the master forgave the debt and sent him on his way.

Later, that forgiven man demanded payment from a poor man who could not repay his debt to him, though the amount he owed was small. Despite the poor man’s plea for mercy, the man to whom the debt was owed, the same man whom the master had forgiven so much, cast the poor man and his family in prison.

The message to the disciples was clear. The well of God’s forgiveness never runs dry for those who truly repent. He asks the same from us. Forgiveness ought to be a part of who we are…infinitely extended as a natural part of our relationship with a loving and merciful father.

Let’s talk about what that means. When someone hurts me, my first reaction is to check my contract with God to find a loophole, any loophole, that allows me to withhold my forgiveness. That’s kind of what Peter was asking. “Surely, there are things I don’t have to forgive. Surely, there is a limit.”

As humans, we can do some despicable things to one another, making the resentment we feel run deep. We might say the words of forgiveness. We might act the part. But we let the bitterness fester and burn. It takes time to process the hurt.

Forgiveness is too easy to say. Much harder to do. Bitterness keeps us from being able to forgive. It is a tap root that burrows deeply into the fertile soil of anger that we’ve trapped inside. We justify our bitterness with frightening ease. “Since I’ve been hurt, I have a right to feel this way. I have a right to retaliate. I have a right to push this person aside, unworthy of my grace and love.”

That beautiful passage in I Corinthians 13:5 tells us that “love keeps no record of wrongs.” Our experience tells us that bitterness keeps a ledger and conceals it in a combination safe behind the haloed painting of Jesus hanging on our wall in our bedroom. We just don’t want to give up our anger.

While the world might agree with us that the hurt we’ve endured entitles us to a certain amount of anger, rage, resentment, and bitterness, we know in our hearts that the longer we harbor resentment, the more it hurts us.

This is not the way of Christ. Love and forgiveness are the only ways to get rid of bitterness that has taken root in our hearts. If we are to live as Christ lived, forgiveness must be our way as well. Paul laid it out there for the church at Ephesus.

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Ephesians 4:31-32

Only God’s power and the work of his spirit within us can bring us to a place of being ready and willing to forgive.

Jesus was skilled at forgiveness…It was a God thing. Second nature. A part of who he was. Hanging from a brutal cross and bearing our sins, he cried, “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing.”

I always thought this prayer was for the Jews who convicted him and the soldiers to crucified him. I’m convinced now that it was his appeal on my behalf…for my future sins. His willingness to forgive my sins from the cross compels me to forgive others.

So how do we get rid of the bitterness that stands as an obstacle that keeps us from forgiving those who hurt us?

Jesus told his disciples, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Luke 6:27-28

There it is — love and pray for your enemies! Love them as God loves them. Pray for those who persecute you. Hurt you. Disrespect you. Disagree with you. Irritate you. Offend you.

Here’s what I’ve learned through the years. My prayers for others may or may not change them, but they always change me…which may be the whole point of prayer in the first place.

There’s one more thing. Several passages in the Bible indicate that God forgives and forgets our sins.

“I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” Isaiah 43:25

God’s “not remembering” is not what we usually think of as forgetting. God is omniscient. He knows everything. He forgets nothing. “Not remembering” is the equivalent of not acting upon them. He chooses to overlook our sin because the price of that sin has already been paid.

You see, forgiveness is a choice. We may never actually forget the action. We can, through the grace of God, choose to put the painful memories aside. To choose to overlook it. Forgiving as God forgives keeps us from dwelling on the past.

I’ve erased my painting of Judas so many times the plaster is worn out. I don’t know who’s face you’re painting on your forgiveness fresco. I do know that you’ll never clearly see the face of Jesus until you set the bitterness aside and forgive the one who hurt you.

“Seven times seventy.”

Passion Week-Wednesday: Betrayal

Background Passages: Matthew 26:14-16, Matthew 27:1-5, Romans 5:6-8, and 2 Corinthians 5:21

Jesus had to be a little grateful for his Wednesday. A quiet day. After the confrontations with the Pharisees and dawn to dusk teaching, Wednesday was more peaceful. His time in the temple was without controversy or confrontation. His time with his disciples laid back and easy.

Yet, in the back rooms of religious hierarchy where decisions are made, sinful men were plotting his death. In the bosom of his own fellowship, a disillusioned disciple made a choice.

Whether one betrays a country, principle or person the act of betrayal isn’t easily forgiven or forgotten. The names of history’s most infamous traitors remain on the tips of our tongues.

Brutus.

Benedict Arnold.

Judas Iscariot.

None of these names surprise to you. Had I asked you to name the three most infamous traitors, most of you would name these three men. Most of us would put Judas at the top of the list. How did he get there?

Judas is an enigmatic character. When Jesus called he followed. He must have recognized something different in Jesus. His words. The miracles he performed. Everything about Jesus convinced Judas that this was the Messiah for whom his people had waited.

Along the way, the words Jesus preached seemed less like the warrior king he wanted and more like one afraid to do what was necessary to free his people. Judas pushed and prodded his master, but Jesus’ message never strayed.

Knowing it would take money to feed the rebellion he desire, Judas let greed consume him. Two things happened that pushed Judas over the edge. When a woman anointed Jesus with precious perfume, John tells us that Judas protested what he felt was extravagant waste.

“Why wasn’t it sold and the money given to the poor?” objected Judas. John explains that Judas motives were not honorable. That Judas cared little about the poor and wanted the money for himself. (John 12:4-6)

Then after another of Jesus’ private sessions with the disciples on the Mount of Olives, Jesus told them plainly that his hour had come. That in two days he would be handed over to be crucified. (Matthew 26:2) It was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Judas.

The last three years had been a waste. The man he thought would rid them of the Roman occupation, the man he had thought would elevate him to a position of authority in a new kingdom, admitted he would die. Judas had enough.

Whether motivated by pure greed or by the desire to bend Jesus to Judas’ will, the traitor went to the religious leaders and bartered away Jesus’ life. He pocketed their thirty pieces of silver and waited for the right time to turn him in to the authorities. (Matthew 26:14-16)

Some will say Judas had no choice. That this was his destiny. Judas had a choice. He just chose poorly. Had Judas honored his commitment to Christ, the religious leaders would have found another way to get rid of Jesus. They had met that very night in the house of Caiaphas, the chief priest, plotting and planning his arrest and death. Judas just made it infinitely easier.

No. Judas made his choice. And, here’s the rub. He made the same mistake I make almost every day of my life when I reject the will of God and try to bend him to my will. And, together we put Jesus on the cross.

Wednesday night, you see, was the night the last piece of God’s plan to bring salvation to a rebellious world fell in place. The countdown clock was ticking and the only thing that would stop it was if Jesus turned his back on God and walked away. (Jesus also had a choice.)

For us up to this point in our weekly study, Jesus’ death on the cross has been hidden in the mist. Too unpleasant to think about. Pushed in the background of his continued teaching and life-changing lessons about love and devotion to God.

But, the week now takes a darker turn.

We tend to throw Judas at the top of the list of history’s traitors, making him a scapegoat, minimizing the role we played in Jesus’ death.

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6-8)

Judas betrayed Jesus in a despicable way. We’re just as guilty of betraying Jesus as anyone. Turning our backs on him for 30 pieces of selfish desire. Our rebellion. Our sin. While we were yet sinners…

“God made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Judas stood with the soldiers in the Garden of Gethsemane as they arrested Jesus. He watched from a distance as the religious leaders manipulated the system. Jesus was sentenced to death on the cross.

Seized with remorse for betraying “innocent blood,” Judas tossed the 30 pieces of silver at the feet of the priests and elders. In his grief he found a tree on the outskirts of town and hung himself. (Matthew 27:1-5)

How’s that for a bit of irony? Both Judas and Jesus hung from a tree. Both bearing guilt. Judas dying for his own guilt. Jesus dying for the guilt all who would put their faith and trust in him. He died for me. He died for you. Sinners and betrayers all.

Jesus died for the sins of the world…to give each of us the chance and that choice to “become the righteousness of God.” To live in right relationship with him.

Though Wednesday was for Jesus a quiet day before his crucifixion, it brings with it a brutal reminder of our role in sending Jesus to the cross. It’s not a lesson we like to hear. It is one we need to remember. It is by God’s grace that we are saved.

Thank God for his provision. Thank God that from the moment of creation itself he planned a way to take away my guilt and my betrayal forever. Thank God for Jesus Christ his son.

Return the Copper Nails

Background Passage: Psalm 51

A Christian man worked for a shipbuilder. The owner of the company considered himself an atheist. With disdain, he constantly mocking his employee for the futility of his faith, treating him with disrespect and contempt.

The Christian man was building a boat for his family in his backyard for his family. Because he could not afford them, he began stealing copper nails from the shipyard to use on his personal project. At first, just a handful. Then, he stole them whenever he needed more.

Perhaps it was the bosses attitude that convinced him that taking the copper nails was justified. Perhaps he felt he was owed more than he was paid. In every other way, the man’s life was exemplary. Yet, when it came to copper nails, he chose to ignore the voice of God within his heart.

*****

He was God’s chosen king. A faithful servant. Courageous warrior. Slayer of giants. Skilled musician. Leader of men.

David, a shepherd boy from Bethlehem, found himself called by God and anointed by Samuel as King of Israel. Such was the depth of his character that God called him, “A man after my own heart.” David earned that distinction. His reputation for humility, reverence, devotion and faithfulness created an aura about him, recognized by all he encountered.

Yet David, this man of God, experienced moment of abject failures. At times, human weakness consumed him. Consider his actions on a cool and sleepless night.

David walked onto the balcony of his palace overlooking the city below. In the moonlight, he watched as a beautiful woman bathed in the moonlight. Struck by her beauty and consumed with lust, he sent his servants to bring Bathsheba to him. What began as a night of illicit passion ended in pregnancy.

His folly did not end there. In a series of Machiavellian maneuvers, David compounded his sin. He was not swept away by circumstance …simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nor did he act on impulse. David’s sin was meticulously planned.

To protect his position, David devised a plan to bring Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, home from battle to be with his wife. When Uriah refused to indulged in his own desire because his men were still at war, David schemed again. He sent the commander on a suicide mission. When Uriah was killed, David took Bathsheba as his wife, somehow rationalizing his actions as acceptable.

Like David, we face our own crisis of character. Sometimes we find the strength to walk through the danger to the other side. Sometimes we fail to be who we desire to be. Who God intends us to be. We engage in the sin that eats away our moral fiber. Rather than correct our path, we swallow our guilt. Push it deeper into the darkest recesses of our souls.

Such efforts seldom work. There comes a day when we must face the sin. Face the consequences of our choice. Do I keep living this way? Separate from the will of God? Do I repent and find a new way to live?

Sin we bury always rises to the surface when we least expect it. On a beautiful spring day when the prophet Nathan stood before the king, he brought words that would dredge up the long-buried sin David tried to hide from himself and from God.

Nathan spoke of a rich man who hosted an important visitor for an important dinner. As host, the rich man prepared a huge banquet in the honor of his guest. However, rather than slaying one of his own sheep for the table, he ordered his servants to take and butcher the prized lamb of the poor farmer next door. It was this lamb he served to his important guest.

David interrupted before Nathan could finish the story. Incensed. Furious.

“As surely as the Lord lives,
the man who did this deserves to die!
He should pay for the lamb four times over
because he did such a thing and
had no pity.”

The king’s anger echoed in the chamber, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Then, quietly and with no joy, Nathan said,

“You are the man.”

In that instant, the sin David buried in his soul, flashed before his eyes, a painful reminder of his spiritual failure. The burden of guilt welled in his eyes as he struggled with the weight of his mistakes. Hear the agony of his voice.

“Have mercy on me, O God,
According to your unfailing love;
According to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
Wash away my iniquity and
Cleanse me from my sin.

“For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
Against you have I sinned and done
what is evil in your sight.”

David’s story could parallel the hubris and folly in my life and yours a hundred times over. Time and time again we fail to live up to the standards of God. We fail to live up to the image of Christ. Then, in some way the Holy Spirit calls us to drop the pretense and take a good hard look at the face in the mirror.

When the eyes staring back at us break our hearts, maybe it’s time to throw ourselves at the mercy of a Father who loves us deeply. David came down from his throne and knelt before the throne of God with a changed heart, acknowledging his sin. Taking that first step toward reconciliation.

Once he confessed his failure, David knew that God only could take his sin away. Pleading for God to erase the sin from his heart. Seeking forgiveness and restoration.

“Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean;
Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.”

For all his failure, David knew what God required of him. He knew God wanted more from David than someone simply going through the motions. God desired a changed heart.

“You do not delight in sacrifice or
I would bring it.
You do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and contrite heart.”

It is one thing to acknowledge my sin. I can know that what I’m doing is against God’s will and still do it. Simply going through the motions will not suffice. My life will not change until my stubbornness is crushed. Until God pries opens my heart and breaks down my resistance. I change my life only when my spirit is broken and my heart sincerely open to God’s direction.

A contrite heart doesn’t make excuses or attempt to justify one’s sin. God is not interested in empty apologies or halfhearted resolutions. A contrite heart expresses with real and deep sorrow our personal rebellion against God. A contrite heart desires to live differently. A contrite heart also knows that change is not possible without God’s forgiveness.

David knew the power of forgiveness to renew his life. Consumed by guilt, he asked simply for God to allow him to hear again “joy and gladness;” to allow his “bones to rejoice.” Then in some of the most beautiful verses in all scripture, David expressed his desire to experience a new life in the presence of God.

“Create in me a pure heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Restore the joy of your salvation and
grant me a willing spirit to sustain me.”

A pure heart is intent upon living within God’s purpose and plan for its life. Focused on doing right. One where every thought and action reflects the teachings of Christ. It is only then that the joy we experienced when we first allowed Jesus into our lives is restored in perfect purity. It is only then that we find ourselves again content in our own skin. It is only then we can look into the reflection in the mirror and smile.

*****

For weeks the Christian man happily hammered the copper nails into his sailboat. Then, one Sunday, the pastor spoke about the two thieves surrounding Jesus on the cross. From that day forward, every stroke of the hammer pounded his sin more deeply into his heart.

After days of guilt, he laid his sin before God in repentance. He went to his pastor and confessed what he had done. He also knew he should also confess to his boss, but also knew it would give justification for the man’s arguments against his belief in God. He felt he could not confess his sin because it would reinforce the man’s disdain for God.

For weeks he struggled until he finally told his boss everything and paid him back for the copper nails he had taken. The man expected to lose his job. To his surprise his boss accepted his payment and said, “Any God that would cause a man to admit his failure might be a God worth knowing.”

All I know is that in my own life I’ve nailed a few stolen copper nails into my own boat. And, from time to time, I still do. Yet, it is not the way I want to live. When I am right with God and with those around me, I know true joy.

It is good to know that we serve a God who forgives a repentant heart. It’s good to know that our mistakes do not have to define us. God’s forgiveness frees us to serve again.

So God waits patiently for the contrite and broken heart to call out to him…

“Create in me a pure heart;
renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Restore the joy of my salvation.”

It’s time to return the copper nails so we may be useful again. That’s my prayer for all of us.

Strain the Camel

Background Passages: Matthew 23:23-24; 2 Timothy 1:7

I don’t much like weeding the garden. Well, that’s not exactly true. I hate weeding the garden.

Recognizing it needs to be done from time to time, I started in one small corner and began pulling up the blanket of milkweed that covered the topsoil. Painstaking and boring. I finished a 10-foot section of ground and looked back on what I had accomplished. All the milkweed was gone. Yet, there in the middle of the flowerbed I just cleared stood a very proud, 18-inch dandelion with a bright, yellow flower on top. So focused on the little weeds, I missed the big, ugly one right in front of me.

I wonder if that was what it was like for the Pharisees as they settled into their comfortable lives. So focused were they on complete obedience to the letter of law that they missed its intent. So comfortable in the routine of religion, they ignored the needs of a lost world, never practicing what they preached.

In other words, they laboriously pulled the milkweed, but ignored the dandelion. Jesus’ call to righteous living put a spotlight on the dandelion.

In the last days of Jesus’ ministry prior to his journey to the cross, we find him spending more and more time grounding his disciples in the deepest fundamentals of faith. The more he talked about the kingdom of God, the more his opponents protested, pressured and plotted to eliminate him.

Instead of a concentrated effort to discern the truth the Pharisees made a concerted effort to discredit every word he spoke. They picked at the minuscule and ignored the material. A master of hyperbole, Jesus challenged their hypocrisy. The religious leaders of the day took great care to cross every “t” and dot every “i” in their quest for religious piety. So focused were they on the legalities of religion, they missed the point of faith.

Jesus acknowledged that they regularly gave their tithes of mint, dill and cumin, but he chided them for failing to practice the important matters of the very law they claimed to obey. Where is justice? Mercy? Faithfulness? “You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former.”

Jesus took them to task for their improper perspective. “You blind guides! You strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel.”

Had I been standing next to Peter and John that day, I’m pretty sure the snicker I failed to choke back would have drawn an ugly glare from the closest Pharisee and a pained glance from Jesus that said, “Really? That’s your contribution to this debate?”

What a powerful commentary Jesus made with a tongue-in-cheek comment. It is a brilliant analysis of the problems preventing the Pharisees from accepting the new truth Jesus brought to the world. They were so driven by the principle of not eating what they deemed unclean that they would use a cloth to strain their drink to make sure they would not accidentally consume the tiny, filthy insect. Yet, they never seemed to see the camel they swallowed whole.

Had I been walking next to Jesus later that afternoon, I suspect I might have apologized and rationalized my inappropriate behavior. “I’m sorry, Jesus, but that was a good line. Pretty funny. Did you see their faces?”

I think Jesus would have put his arm around me and said with a rueful smile, “It might have been funnier if it weren’t also true in your life, too, my friend.” As my mind reeled, I’d hear something about ignoring the 4” x 4” beam in my own eye.

I am, at times, guilty of the same Pharisaical behavior. The Pharisees practiced their faith. They made dedicated effort to comply with the ritual and rules, focusing in extreme measure on the “thou shalts” and the “thou shalt nots,” while spending precious little time on the “love thy neighbor.” Being right was a higher calling than doing right. I may not always be that different.

You and I live in a time when it’s fashionable to be hypercritical. To declare ourselves politically and socially holier than thou. You and I live in a time when pronouncing our truth rides roughshod over proclaiming his truth. When we love the sound of our own voice rather than seeking to sound the voice of love. Such arrogance drives people away from the very one to whom our deeds and our words should point and proclaim.

It’s easy to play the Christian card in a world struggling to do what’s right. Attend church every week. Sing a few songs. Sit through the sermon. Study his word in Sunday School. Gather up a few old clothes to give to the poor every now and again. Now, somehow, I’m better that that other poor soul. It’s not that these things are wrong. Like Jesus reminded the Pharisees, these are things that should not be neglected.

However, when we focus on the “things” of our religion to the exclusion of the crucial matters of our faith…justice, forgiveness, love, compassion, truth…

…we become critical rather than encouraging…

…we divide rather than bring together…

…we falsely elevate our standing in the eyes of God, and…

…we fail in the deeper call of Christ.

We wonder all the time how the Pharisees could be so obtuse, time and time again failing to recognize the truth of Jesus’s words because they threatened to push them out of their comfort zone. The truth is they lived in fear of the kingdom of God that Jesus personified. It upset their apple carts and threatened to pull down their carefully constructed walls that isolated them from a world in need.

Jesus tells them, “You put on a good front. Make a good show of things. But, your heart cannot see what I see. Until it does, you will continue to go through the motions, critical of those less “pious,” feeling safe and comfortable within the walls you built around you.

“Until you see the world through my eyes and move past the ritual and routine, you’ll keep straining that gnat and eating that camel.”

Jesus calls me to keep doing those things I ought to be doing, but to focus on what matters most. I must set aside the fear that keeps me from embracing in love a world that knows no better way. I need to step outside my comfort zone. To challenge what I believe and dig deeper until God teaches me the next thing I need to know to become more like him. Fear stared the Pharisees in the face and gripped their hearts. It does the same to me at times.

When he needed to encourage Timothy, the young pastor of Ephesus, Paul reminded him,

“God did not give us a spirit of timidity and fear, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.”

I also find that encouraging. My ability to move past the trappings of religion and into a full expression of faith rests not in my own ability, but in the power of God through his spirit within me. My desire to love others will not come from the goodness of my own heart but from a realization of sacrificial love and mercy God extends to me every day. My desire to see the needs of those around me and to, therefore, act, comes from the discipline to be more like Christ every day in every way.

I don’t know if you feel the same way at times, but, if we assume we’re doing pretty well at filtering out our gnats, maybe it’s time we both strain the camel.

A New Thing

Background Passage: Isaiah 43:18-21; Philippians 1:4-6

The passing of the annual torch from Father Time to Baby New Year has its roots in America in the fanciful illustrations of Joseph Christian Leyendecker, an early 20th century mentor of Norman Rockwell. Beginning with the December 29, 1906 edition of the Saturday Evening Post, Leyendecker started a 36-year publishing tradition by drawing an innocent, cherubic baby on the cover of the magazine’s last issue of each year in celebration of the arrival of the New Year. Each illustration suggested, “Out with the old. In with the new.”

Out with the old. In with the new. The New Year gives us the opportunity to forget the past and start with a new set of resolutions designed to make us better. I don’t suppose it’s ever a bad thing to reflect on the old year and then make the inevitable inner promises to reinvent ourselves. If you’re anything like me, however, a promise made in January’s daybreak rarely survives its sunset.

Coming so closing after the celebration of Christmas, I also find the New Year serves as a great reminder of the new work God has done in our lives through the birth of his son. A reminder to set aside the sins of the past and to recommit ourselves to the life God desires for us.

Isaiah, preaching to the people of Israel in exile, shared an encouraging word from God to his weary people. This is what he said,

“Forget the former things: do not dwell on the past. See! I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

What is done is done. What is past is past. Despite a world of remorse or regret, we can do nothing to change a single moment of this past year. God reminds us through Isaiah, “Put your mistakes behind you. Don’t let them eat at your soul.” That’s always easier said than done. However, the continuous redemptive work of God tells a remorseful heart that the price of our sin has already been paid. Let it go. Look ahead.

When we finally turn our eyes from the failures of our past, when we finally let go of the baggage, we can look forward to the new work of God in our lives.

I love the words God shared with Isaiah. Hear the excitement in God’s voice as he tries to revive the broken hearts of his people. “See! I am doing a new thing!” It’s as if he is saying, “Look! Wake up! Don’t hang your heads! Look at the exciting things in store for you in the year ahead! I’m getting ready to rock your world! Can’t you see it?”

Was 2018 what you hoped it would be? I hope so, but maybe you found the past 12 months filled with pain, uncertainty, heartbreak and grief. Maybe you felt disconnected and alone. Maybe you realize you walked a path of your own choosing that took you too far from God. Maybe you just feel…off somehow. Just not quite right. Hear God’s word of encouragement. “See! I am doing a new thing!”

God’s word to the people of Israel promised restoration. He offers the same to us, especially when we are wandering in our personal wasteland and wilderness. He tells us with genuine excitement in his voice, “Have I got plans for you!”

Don’t make this New Year about resolutions. Make it about re-commitment. Focus on the new thing God is doing in your life. Open your heart to the possibility that this new thing he is doing will be the absolute best thing for your heart.

If you doubt this promise for a minute, consider Paul’s greeting to the Philippian church.

“In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident in this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

The one who began this good work, this new thing, in your life will stay with you until it is finished. He will never stop working in our lives. Not in 2019. Not ever. So as we look to this New Year, it’s out with the old and in with this new thing God is doing.

I don’t know about you, but that makes me look forward to what this New Year will bring.

Forgiveness Without Limits

Background Passage: Matthew 18:21-35

One can’t be sure what prompted the question. Perhaps it was born out of a natural argument among men who traveled together days on end. Men getting on each other’s nerves after too much time together, staring into the distance from opposite sides of the road.

Perhaps the question popped into his head after hearing another rabbi expound in heavy monotone in the local synagogue about the law’s limit on human forgiveness.

Perhaps the question rattled around his brain after hearing Jesus teach about harmony among believers and dealing with the unrepentant sinner among them.

Whatever the prompt, Peter sidled up to Jesus one day with an honest question about forgiveness. “How many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me?”

The scripture Peter knew laid specific guidelines for forgiveness, declaring that you should forgive anyone three times. One was not obligated to forgive a fourth offense. The question Peter posed reflected the thinking of the day. Surely, there is a point where forgiveness is no longer expected. In essence, “When can I stop forgiving someone who hurts me?”

His follow up question suggests that Peter had a gut feeling that Jesus always lived in a “walk the extra mile-turn the other cheek” kind of world when it came to the law. He certainly saw evidence of Jesus’ boundless forgiveness in his time with his Lord. So, Peter exerted his opinion in the form of another question. “How many times shall I forgive a brother or sister who sins against me? Seven times?”

In the debate bouncing around in his head, Peter must have thought he would catch an “atta boy” from his Master for his magnanimous spirit. “The law says ‘three’ times. Let’s double that and add one for good measure. Now that’s turning the other cheek.”

Maybe it played out like this:

Jesus stooped as he walked
down the dusty path.
Picking up a chunk of gray basalt
along the side of the road.
“That’s a great question, Peter.”
Jesus bounced the rock in his hand a time or two.
Thinking about his response.
Casually threw the rock side-armed.
Bouncing it off the trunk of a cypress tree
60 feet down the road.

“I tell you, Peter.
It’s more than that.
You’re still too literal. Not seven times.
Seventy-seven times.

“We won’t get through this life
without someone hurting us.
Taking advantage.
Offending.
Insulting.
Happens in the closest families.
Happens within the fellowship of believers.

“How much do we damage all those relationships
if we put a limit on our forgiveness?
Doesn’t our limited attitude
set a substantial barrier between us and
those we are supposed to love?

“The law says three.
You say seven.
Both are limits.”

Jesus sat under the same cypress tree
he plunked with the stone.
Glad to get out of the summer heat.
His disciples settled around him,
taking a quick drink from a shared
water bag Nathaniel carried.

No heavy sermon.
No deep theology.
Just a tongue-in cheek story to teach
a powerful lesson about the
size of their hearts.

“The kingdom we’re trying to build here is different.
“Let’s suppose…”

Jesus then launched into a parable about a king to whom a servant owed more money that the disciples could imagine. 10,000 talents. Historians tell us a talent represented the equivalent of 6,000 days’ wages. Staggering! The number Jesus imagined would support a man for 164,000 years. Hear the laughter roll through the disciples as they could scarcely comprehend the outrageous fortune the man owed. Hyperbole of the highest magnitude. Jesus laughs with them. Sees that he’s captured their attention.

Jesus continues. The time comes to collect the bill and the king says, “Pay up or you and your family will be sold into slavery and all you own will be confiscated to repay what is owed…knowing full well the servant’s assets would scarcely make a dent in the debt.

The man falls on the floor promising to repay what he has no hope of repaying. Grasping at straws. Begging for mercy. Yet, somehow, the man’s contrite spirit touches the king deeply.

Jesus mimics wiping a tear from his eyes, “Your debt is cancelled. Go home.”

The disciples react with a chuckle and few comments about the king’s enormous wealth and the servant’s good fortune. Jesus waited until they settled down. His playful demeanor turning more solemn.

“Now suppose this very relieved servant…”

Jesus’ brow furrows in thought, eyes searching deeply into the heart of each disciple as he speaks. He explains how the forgiven servant encountered a colleague who owed him six months’ wages, a pittance compared with his former debt. Yet, the man whose debt was wiped clean grabbed his friend by the scruff of the neck demanding his payment.

That servant was in no better place financially than the forgiven one. Using the exact same words the first servant spoke to the king, the man falls on the ground. Begs for mercy. Promises to pay back a difficult, but not impossible, sum of money. Rather than extend the same mercy as he received, the man had the other thrown in jail until his debt could be paid.

The injustice described hit home with the disciples. Caught up in the story, they grumbled a bit, angry at the first servant.

Jesus becomes more animated as he continues the parable. His words coming more rapidly. “Now, when the king found out, he was livid and called the first servant before him. You wicked servant. I canceled all your debt because you begged me. Where is your mercy toward the one who owed you?”

The disciples pondered the words during the pregnant silence that hung in the air like a morning mist. Jesus added, “This is how my Father will treat you unless you forgive your brother and sister from your heart.”

I think Jesus liked Peter’s question. It gave him a chance to help the disciples sink the plow of personal belief a little more deeply in the fertile soil of applicable faith. It never crossed Jesus’ mind to make forgiveness a quantifiable event. Yet, the religious law of the day did exactly that, dragging the plow along the surface, setting the standard in shallow attitudes seemed to look forward to a day of retaliation rather than a time of reconciliation.

Peter stretched the legal limit as far as he felt comfortable. “I know you expect more from us, Jesus, than the law requires.” And, in that moment of inspiration, he doubled the law’s demand and added one to grow on. “Seven seems like a fair number,” proud of the forbearance it showed.

Jesus understood forgiveness as a way of being…a lifestyle choice. To Jesus, forgiveness was a way of relating to others. Thinking about others. Loving others. Forgiveness is nothing less than the way of Christ. If we are to live in his image, forgiveness must be our way as well. Not three times. Not seven times, but as an open expression of whose we are.

Picture Jesus. Visiting with the woman at the well, turning her from her troubled lifestyle.

Watch him. Writing in the dirt next to the woman caught in the act of adultery as the Pharisees who wished to stone her walked away with guilt laden feet. “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”

See him. Wrapping his arm around Peter who lived for weeks with the sound of that rooster crowing in his head, “Feed my sheep.”

Forgiveness.

The way of Christ.

An infinite, life-altering act of grace.

In his book, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis wrote, “Forgiveness is a lovely idea, until there is something to forgive.” A promising premise, in principle, until we face the dreadful reality of pardoning the grievous and unforgivable.

Our lives are filled with broken promises, bitter betrayals and hurt feelings. We cry over unkind words, licking our physical and emotional wounds, telling our stories of loss and pain at the hands of another. Underneath all of it lies the question of forgiveness. How can we move past the hurt and into the healing?

Jesus told his disciples that forgiveness flows from the heart. He meant that they must dig deeply into their innermost being and find a way to set aside the anger, frustration and bitterness. To offer sincere words of forgiveness wrapped in the warmth of God’s love, extended with a handshake or embrace.

If the greatest attribute of God in Christ is love, one could make an argument that forgiveness is the greatest expression of love. This much seems to be true…living in the image of God requires us to demonstrate boundless forgiveness. It’s not that easy.

I have listened in amazement to a friend whose son was the innocent victim of a drive-by shooting talk sincerely about forgiving the one who senselessly took his son’s life. I heard honest words of forgiveness from a woman whose beloved grandmother was killed because the drunk driver shared one too many glasses of wine.

How can we hear testimonies like those and still harbor resentment toward the person who sat in our pew last Sunday? How can we let a few ill-chosen words of a neighbor cut us off from the fellowship we once enjoyed?

When we start counting the offenses we suffer at the hands of another…adding up the chalk marks until that day when we can say, “Enough is enough…” then we’re living exactly like the first servant in Jesus’ story. While we ignore the 10,000 talents of sin our Father forgave us, we hold our offender by the scruff of the neck, demanding payment… unwilling to forgive even the slightest of sins against us.

I share breakfast and Bible reading once a week with a group of men in the community where I work. Every breakfast ends with the Lord’s Prayer. The model prayer offered a petition and an expectation, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

Jesus said as much to the disciples as he wrapped up this impromptu lesson. I see him rising from the tree under which he sat, bending down to pick up another rock, bouncing in lightly in his hand. He reared back and threw it, striking another bullseye on the trunk of another cypress tree 60 feet farther down the road.

Setting off down the road again, he ended the lesson with a casual but cautionary moral to the story, “If you don’t forgive others, how can God possible forgive you.”

His disciples get up and follow with their plow set a little deeper in the fertile soil of faith.

The lesson Jesus teaches his disciples, he also teaches us. Peter shared our human tendency to limit forgiveness. But to forgive beyond counting is inhuman. It doesn’t originate from us. It is born of a heart changed by God through Christ and his indwelling spirit of grace living within us. Christ living in us. Us living in the image of Christ.

Come, Let Us Reason Together

Background Passage Isaiah 1:11-18

He was the coolest guy in town, wearing his jeans, a white t-shirt and leather jacket. A snap of his fingers called six attractive girls to his side. A tap of his fist or a quick kick turned on the jukebox. If a kid from another high school was threatening his friends, his mere presence sent the bully running for the exit of the malt shop.

Arthur Fonzarelli. He was the Fonz. As a leading character of the popular 1970s sitcom Happy Days, the Fonz, played by Henry Winkler, dispensed his brand of street wisdom to his group of wide-eye followers, Richie Cunningham, Ralph, “the Mouth”, and Potsie. In their eyes, Fonzie could do no wrong.

The Fonz rarely made a mistake so sitcom writers gave him an endearing quirk. He had a hard time admitting he was wrong. He would start to confess his mistake to Richie or Ralph and invariably stumble over the word. “I was wwwrr…” After a pause to collect himself, he would again stutter, “I was wroonn…” Trying again and again to communicate his mistake, he would change his approach and finally admit, “I wasn’t exactly right.”

Nothing stings as much as the sudden realization that we are wrong. I suspect it happens in our lives more often than we’d like to admit. I know it does in mine. Like the Fonz, we struggle to admit we are wrong. The words catch in our throats.

At no time is that fault more evident than when we sin against God. In our attempts to live our lives in our own strength, we fail miserably at times to live up to the standard of Jesus Christ, making a mess of our days. Even when confronted with our sin, we use every excuse, every reason to justify our behavior. Only when the earth gives way beneath us and our world starts to crumble, do we admit that we were “wwwrr…,” “,,,Wroonn.” “…Not exactly right.”

God knows this struggle within us and stands ready to talk it out.

The people of Israel in the days of Isaiah gave lip service to worship of the One God. They went through the motions of honoring their God. Offering their sacrifices. Singing their praises. Conducting their religious festivals. Spreading out their arms in prayer. Because God knew the insincerity of their hearts, he called them to task for their sin.

“The multitude of your sacrifices, what are they to me?” says the Lord. “I have more than enough of burnt offerings.” God called their offerings “meaningless” and their assemblies “unbearable.” He said, “I will hide my eyes from you. I will not listen to your prayers.” God, their Father, challenged them. “ Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case for the widow.”

Then, he offered something that only a loving Father would offer. An offer he still makes to us today. He said,

“Come, let us reason together.”

Imagine that. Our God, our Creator, the Almighty, wants to sit down with us to talk it out. Another translation of this passage says, “Come, let us argue it out.” God’s word here is not an offer to negotiate our decisions and choices. It is so much more. God extends an invitation to us to talk about our lives, the things with which we struggle, the things that break our hearts, the things we do to try and control our lives on our own. He calls us to engage in thoughtful and honest conversation.

Why would a sovereign Lord seek time with us about the things we do that run counter to his teaching and his will for our lives? When we make an argument before God in an attempt to justify our sin, and when we sincerely listen to his counter arguments, God knows that at some point in that conversation we’re going to open our eyes and our hearts and realize he was right and we were wrong. In an honest dialogue with God, that outcome is inevitable.

Within that debate, if we’re honest with ourselves, God’s logic, his evidence, his arguments against our chosen lifestyle will simply be too convincing and compelling. We will have no choice but to admit our guilt. Oh, we’ll struggle to say it out loud. We will pussyfoot around it. We’ll admit, “I wasn’t quite right,” before we finally bow down before him and say it. “I was wrong.” “I have sinned.”

God doesn’t just want us to admit our mistakes, he wants us to turn away from them. To repent and reclaim his promises. And, he offered restoration. He told the people of Israel,

“Though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.”

The conversation God invites us to enter with him, the dialogue that ensues, doesn’t leave us begging for forgiveness that will never come. It always leads to redemption and restoration. Admitting our guilt is step one. Turning from our ways to full obedience and trust sets us back on the proper path of God’s will for our lives. And, it all starts with the conversation. “Come, let us reason together,” says the Lord.

Understand clearly, in the balance between our God-given freedom and his divine sovereignty, our obedience does not force God to forgive. If it did, we would control his forgiveness. God forgives, not because our obedience requires him to, but because he wants to forgive. It is the desire of his heart. Just ask David or Jonah or a host of others throughout the Bible. God is the God of do overs and second chances.

I saw a poster recently. Paraphrased, it said, “Nothing stinks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.”

There may be an element of truth in that statement as it pertains to our worldly relationships. We just don’t like to be wrong. But, in our relationship to God, there is nothing sweeter than that moment when our conversation with the Father convinces us of our mistakes and draws us back under his will and way.

“Come, let us reason together.” What a life changing conversation that can be!

***

Dr. Kirk Lewis is author of two unique devotional books–Put Away Childish Things and The Chase: Our Passionate Pursuit of Life Worth Living. Learn more about author and his books at www.drkirklewis.com.

Afraid to Let Go

Background Passages: II Samuel 11:1-17 and 12:1-13; Isa. 43:18-19; Psalm 51:19 and Heb. 12:1-2

My brother celebrated one of those milestone birthdays years ago, determined to scratch parachuting from an airplane from his bucket list. With the appropriate time in the classroom, he strap a parachute to his back, climbed into a perfectly fine airplane and took off for his first…and only…static line jump.

In my mind a static line jump fits a on an insanity scale at a level slightly less than skydiving simply because it reduces operator error. Rather than jump, fall and pull your ripcord before you die, you climb out on the wing onto a metal platform with your parachute’s ripcord attached to a static line inside the plane. When you jump, you get two or three seconds of freefall until the line pulls the cord, automatically deploying the parachute. Blind panic assisted by old school technology. Once the canopy fully inflates, you enjoy the magnificent view from above as you glide to a soft landing on the good, green earth below.

My brother found himself standing on the platform flying at 5,000 feet, clutching tightly with both hands to the strut underneath its wing. Buffeted by the wind rushing past him. He waited for his instructor to give him the thumbs up to jump. At the appropriate time, the signal was given. He executed a perfect three-point jump. His feet lifted from the platform and one hand released its death grip. His fourth point, his right hand, refused to release the strut. He flapped wildly in the slipstream underneath the wing, unable to will himself to let go of his hold on that last vestige of safety.

Let’s leave him hanging there and come back to him in a minute and see if I can draw a point from this story.

David, God’s chosen king of Israel, did some pretty horrible things in his life. One particular incident would have spawned a salacious investigation in today’s news cycle. An affair with a married woman left her pregnant. David attempted to manipulate the situation by recalling her husband, Uriah, from the front line of battle to create the impression that the baby was a result of her husband’s leave. Her husband unknowingly thwarted the king’s maneuvering by honorably refusing to go home while his brothers were at war. David then compounded his sin by quietly ordering Uriah and his soldiers on a suicide mission where he would most certainly die, giving David the chance to marry the hero’s widow. David did some despicable things.

When God’s prophet challenged the king’s actions, David recognized his sin, feeling the heavy burden of remorse for his actions. He fell on his face in repentance, asking God to forgive him for everything he had done. David’s felt the sting of his guilt, but he would never now release from that heavy burden until he let go of his failed past and accepted the ever=present reassurance of God’s grace and forgiveness. Only then would his relationship with the Father be reconciled and restored.

Two things happen to us who feel genuine remorse when faced with our own sin. We can seek God’s forgiveness and start anew within the grace he provides, much as David did. Too often, however, we never move past remorse to repentance, clinging to our failure with loathing and self-pity, certain that God could never forgive anyone so unworthy.

I was reminded of that fact not too long ago when I visited with a former pastor who had walked far from the path God intended. He was certain he strayed so far that God could never use him again in kingdom work. The work of Christ on the cross cleared the path for forgiveness, but this man could not bring himself to let go of the past and find a new way of serving him. It’s a journey most of us have made at some point in our lives.

When we refuse to accept the grace of God and forgive ourselves, we tend to drag the past behind us like an anchor. Instead God tells us the same thing he told the people of Israel in Isaiah 43:18-19…

“Forget (let go of) the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”

The instruction is so clear. Let go of our sin. Release it into God’s forgiving hands. He makes a way in the wasteland of our lives to restore us for a new thing. A new work.

Let’s not leave my brother hanging on the wing.

Though it probably seemed like an eternity bouncing around in the slipstream, my brother eventually let go of the strut. The static line pulled the ripcord. The parachute opened. He enjoyed “a new thing.” For minutes on end, he floated lazily on his descent to earth 5,000 feet below with the wondrous panorama of sky and earth laid out before him. He called it “exhilarating,” and “adrenaline rush.” Yet, he only experienced the joy when he let go.

There may be nothing as miserable for a Christian who desires to walk the walk than to fail to do right. Walking in that shadow of guilt is debilitating, affecting not only our relationship with God, but our relationships with others. We can fall on our knees earnestly seeking and intellectually accepting God’s forgiveness. We will never experience full release until we let go of the past and accept the next new thing God prepares for us.

David got his life back on track by asking God to “Create in me a clean heart and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:19) It is a simple prayer of a fully repentant heart that says, “God, help me set aside my past and stay focused on you.”

The writer in Hebrews puts it another way by telling us to “throw off” or let go of everything that hinders us from serving God to the best of our ability. And, he even tells us how. Look at that remarkable passage in Hebrew 12:1-2.

“…Let us throw off (let go of) everything that hinders us and the sin that so easily entangles us. Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.”

Guilt effectively destroys grace-filled living. Keeps us from believing God can use us in any significant way. I’m convinced when we let go of our guilt we will find life laid out before us in a wondrous panorama of God’s exceptional will for each of us. Exhilarating. An adrenaline rush of eternal proportions.

(Author’s Note: Feel free to forward this Bible study to anyone you feel might benefit from its message. Encourage your them to subscribe to the blog by going to www.drkirklewis.com and entering their email address in the box on the right side of the page. Once registered, you will receive an email announcing each new post. Thank you for sharing.)