Great article on principles of forgiveness.
I. Anxiety and relief.
A. Two anxieties face us.
1) Our unchangeable past.
2) Our unpredictable futures.
B. God’s two answers.
1) God forgives our past.
2) God controls our future by keeping his promises.
C. We can share in this divine power by forgiving and promising.
1) Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt concludes there is only
one remedy for the inevitability of history: forgiveness.
2) We are stuck with our past and its effects on us.
History cannot be escaped from, undone or changed.
II. What do we do when we forgive?
A. There are three stages in every act of forgiving.
1) Suffering.
a) Hurts that don’t need to be forgiven:
1> Annoyances, defeats, and slights.
b) Hurts that do need forgiveness:
1> Acts of disloyalty.
A> Treats you as a stranger when you are a friend.
1: This assaults our identity.
B> Examples are adultery, reneging on promises.
2> Acts of betrayal.
A> Treats you as an enemy when you are a friend.
1: Comparison of Peter and Judas.
2) Spiritual surgery.
a) When you forgive someone, you slice away the wrong from
the person who did it.
1> He is remade in your memory.
2> You think of him not as the person who hurt you,
but as the person who needs you.
3> He himself is not changed, but you are.
b) This stage may be our limit.
1> Some we need to forgive are dead and gone.
2> Others do not want our forgiveness.
3) Starting over.
a) Reconciliation is the final act of forgiveness.
b) What is not forgiveness:
1> Forgiving is not forgetting.
2> Forgiving is not excusing.
3> Forgiving is not smoothing things over.
B. Only forgiveness can undo the hurt of history.
1) The grace to do it is from God.
2) The decision to do it is our own.
III. Why forgive?
A. Simon Wiesenthal’s story of unforgiveness.
1) “Let the SS trooper go to hell,” said one respondent.
2) Getting even, having contempt, seems like our only weapon.
B. Forgiveness is superhuman.
1) Forgiveness is a better way to fairness.
a) It creates a new possibility of fairness by releasing us
from the unfair past.
b) It brings fairness to the forgiver.
1> Refusing to forgive condemns us to more unfairness.
2) Vengeance is having a videotape planted in your soul that
cannot be turned off.
a) Forgiveness is the ONLY way back to fairness.
IV. How do we forgive?
A. We forgive slowly.
1) C.S. Lewis took years to forgive a cruel teacher.
B. We forgive communally.
1) Fellowship with those of similar pain can help.
C. We forgive as we are forgiven.
1) Anyone who forgives can hardly tell the difference between
feeling forgiven and doing the forgiving.
2) Example of Corrie ten Boom. [see #3037]
D. Our only escape from history’s cruel unfairness, our only
passage to the future’s creative possibilities, is the
miracle of forgiving.