How Can I Forgive...Vera Sinton

Imagine some of the things you would find most difficult to forgive.

• injustice carried out for cynical political ends
• the jealous destruction of a man because of his good influence over others
• being betrayed for money by someone you trusted
• desertion by a close com[anion at the moment of danger, denying all knowledge of you
• beating someone up for a bit of fun
• allowing an obviously innocent man to be sentenced to one of the most cruel deaths ever devised
• standing and jeering at a person in excruciating pain

Jesus, God's son, was the only sinless person who has ever lived. While all these things were happening to Jesus, he was loving the people involved, offering friendship to the one who betrayed Him, warning his companions of danger ahead. He gently challenged the governor who sentenced him. He openly prayed for the soldiers who nailed his hands and feet to a cross, 'Father forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.'
At the climax of it all he was bearing the full penalty of all the sin committed by people down the centuries. He experienced what it felt like to be out of touch with God, as you and I are. He cried, 'Why have you forsaken me?'
God responded with a unique demonstration of his power over the universe. He raised his Son to life again. Jesus met his followers again and gave them good news to pass on: the offer of forgiveness and new life lived in love with God.
The forgiveness God offers us is not a cheap and easy one.
The philosopher sneered, 'God will forgive. It is his business.'
The cross of Jesus Christ tells another. story. God poured out his heart in costly love, sending his beloved Son to die for you and me. He invites you to turn to him and say, 'I am sorry for my sin. I believe Jesus died for me. Please forgive me and make me your son or daughter again.'
But realize, if you take that step, you are also committing yourself to forgive.

How Can I Forgive... from Vera Sinton

Once in a while there is a hurt which stops you in your tracks. You feel shocked, outraged. You may be blazing with anger or just feel cold and numb. The last thing you feel like doing is turning towards the one who hurt you. Perhaps you feel its impossible to forget the hurt or stop feeling the anger. Perhaps it even seems that it would be wrong to forgive: what has been done offends all justice.

A small boy is playing with a stick in an open space just beyond his village. There are still some bones and skulls to be seen in the grass, remains of the last massacre when troops swept in and shot all the people they suspected of helping the guerrillas. In the boy's mind, the stick is a machine gun. He is practising shooting his father's murderers. He is the man of the family now. When he grows up he has to take revenge.

Fifty years on from the second world war some of the inmates of prisoner-of-war camps in the Asian jungles are still campaigning for compensation. They speak of the lasting physical effects of the tortures they went through. 'The world may forget', one man says, 'but I could never forgive'.

Maybe the unforgivable hurt is to someone you love. Shirley bottled up the hurt done to her husband by a colleague at work. 'I have no problem forgiving for myself,' she said, 'but I feel I have no right to forgive that'

Forgiveness for the little everyday injuries is something we give and receive all the time.
I tread on your toe and you say, 'That's all right.'
Someone makes a mistake that delays the whole team at work but we smile and carry on.

A comment from a friend suddenly hurts me. She sees my frown or the way my shoulders sag and quickly shows she is sorry and cheers me up. We forgive and are forgiven, hardly noticing it happens.

But what happens when it comes to the big hurts for which there will be no easy cure? How can we forgive?
Some people have found the answer to that question.