Suffering often comes from the hands of others. And while Covid-19 brings pain into our lives that has nothing to do with another person, many of us likely experience forms of hurt in this time of hardship that are tied to the hands of others. A family member who has been unhelpful or unkind while we’ve been quarantined. A neighbor who has been neglectful or hostile. A boss or manager who let us go from our job without an ounce of compassion. Local, state or federal officials who have fallen down on the job. Friends who haven’t texted or called in weeks.
Into this kind of grief speaks these words of Jesus:
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Lk. 23:34)
Jesus is a person of grace even in the worst grief. He extends forgiveness to those who have harmed him.
This is the same prayer which Jesus taught us to pray earlier in his ministry. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses people who are hurting. In Matthew 5 he implies that some of his listeners are being persecuted, some are the object of verbal abuse at home, some have critics among their religious circles, some have people dragging them to court, some have people lying to them, and some have Roman soldiers and others forcing them into labor. What are they to do?
Jesus teaches them a prayer:
“Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt. 6:9-15 ESV).”
Six times in these seven verses the same word pops up: forgive. In our world of hurt and injustice, Jesus points to forgiveness. Jesus teaches us to pray for the pardon of those who cause our pain.
The placement of this prayer for forgiveness just after the prayer about daily bread is suggestive—just as daily bread is necessary in a world filled with hunger, so forgiveness is necessary in a world filled with hurt. The world must have both bread and forgiveness in order to function.
Forgiveness, it must be noted, does not discount justice. Writing of the racial trauma endured by many, M. Shawn Anderson in Knowing Christ Crucified writes this:
We Christians ought not to allow the nation to confuse forgiveness with justice. Forgiveness ought to neither disregard, not preempt justice, neither exempt wrongdoing from punishment, nor sacrifice “justice in a foreshortened effort to move on.” The (human) capacity to forgive comes from the gift of grace, from the very gratuity of the Divine Self. The act of offering forgiveness to another discloses what is, in fact, a conclusion of a profound existential spiritual undertaking. For some this process may be years in the making as individuals or groups intentionally seek to come to terms with and freely respond in love and hope to those who perpetrate grave wrongs against them.”
Justice and forgiveness must co-exist.
Miroslav Volf has written an extended reflection on this in his book Exclusion and Embrace. He writes about the tension he felt as he tried to address the suffering in Serbia and Croatia brought on by racial and ethic discrimination and division:
It was a difficult book to write. My thought was pulled in two different directions by the blood of the innocent crying out to God and by the blood of God’s lamb offered for the guilty. How does one remain loyal both to the demand of the oppressed for justice and to the gift of forgiveness that the Crucified offered to the perpetrators? I felt caught between two betrayals–the betrayal of the suffering, exploited and excluded, and the betrayal of the very core of my faith. In a sense, even more disturbingly, I felt that my very faith was at odds with itself, divided between the God who delivers the needy and the God who abandons the Crucified, between the demands to bring about justice for the victims and the call to embrace the perpetrator.
Justice, it must be remembered, is a form of love, as forgiveness is. Justice acts in love to end behaviors and policies that harm. Forgiveness acts in love to mend what has been torn by those behaviors and policies. Justice presses relentlessly for the ultimate end to every conduct or character that does not uphold the basic human dignity and worth of every human. Forgiveness extends relentlessly until this end happens. Both are needed in times of pain.
Consider the pain you’re currently experiencing. What place might forgiveness have in your ability to find relief, comfort and healing?
