Forgiveness

I can’t count how many times I have read today’s Gospel passage and how many times I have just keep moving forward to what was next on the days agenda. This morning, however, I was struck by the power of the gift and the warning that God gave us:

If you forgive men their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, neither will your father forgive your transgressions”

Matthew 6:14-15

I wanted to see what Matthew was telling his contemporaries (and us) that Jesus said, and what he meant. So I went to the passage in the original Hebrew and the translation into Greek. As you can imagine, “transgressions” (which is such a weighty word), was sins in Hebrew and mistakes in Greek. A bit of a difference there.

Transgressions. Sins. Mistakes. We commit them and we experience them from others. But what a gift to be told that we don’t need to carry them around, we can let them go.

Some things are easier to forgive than others, this applies to everyone. But I know that when I hold onto something that I know is an injustice to me it requires some energy. It saps my creativity. It holds me down and dims my light. And I simply don’t have to hang onto it.

As we hear often, it doesn’t mean that whatever the transgression, the sin or the mistake was okay, not at all. And wrongdoings need to be brought to the light of day in order to be corrected and justified. The reality is that some things may never be righted as far as we know but we need to trust in our God who sees and knows all. It also doesn’t mean that we need to stay in a state of bitterness like the creature in the Steven Crane Poem The Desert (worth the read.) The powerful gift that God gives each of us is the freedom of forgiveness and the promise of being forgiven. The warning is that there will be a rock we carry and then we too will be accountable. God always calls us to an open heart, an open spirit and always gives us the formula to make it happen.

So maybe today is a good day to think about what needs to be let go of, what needs to be laid down, and what no longer serves us and to finally forgive what needs to be forgiven. And maybe it will take practice until it finally takes. Maybe it will mean taking five minutes here and there to just ask God to help us forgive what we can’t seem to let go of. God is so good and will be there when and how we need as no one knows our hearts better. It’s definitely doable if you want it to be.

My prayer for you today is that you be free from whatever burden you carry and that by Easter you too will feel transformed.