Listen here.
How much do those words mean to you? “I forgive you.”
We started the service out with this. We confessed our sins.
I forgave you … in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. How did that
make you feel?
I remember hearing these words week after week when I was a
child. We confessed our sins. The pastor spoke those words. We moved on in the
service. I knew I was forgiven.
It was a very different experience when I was in college and
my friend and mentor probed my sin, dug into my attitudes, and slowly,
methodically, hemmed me in and nailed me to the wall showing that I was no
better than the Pharisees at Jesus – breaking the commandments, justifying
myself, and freely condemning others of the very sins I had committed. He
shattered me with God’s Law and then he did something that was at the same time
the worst thing I had ever experienced and the best I could have ever hoped
for. He looked me square in the eye and said, “I forgive you.” In Jesus’ name
he forgave me. It killed me, and I walked away more alive in faith than I had
ever been before.
It was a different experience yet again when I got really
mad at one of my children and I was a jerk, I was thoroughly unjust in how I
treated her. Can you relate? Have you ever done that? And later I went and
apologized and she said, “I forgive you, Daddy.” It killed me. Do you know what
I mean? But I walked away filled with love and joy because of what Jesus was
doing in my daughter’s life … and in mine.
It’s an altogether different experience to sit next to the
hospital bed and to talk to an elderly man who had lived with guilt his whole
adult life. He did some things when he was young that he wasn’t proud of –
things that you or I might say, “You did what you had to do to survive.” He’d
always say, “God’s been better to me, than I ever was to him.” He knew that he
had broken God’s perfect law, and despite the fact that he had lived a
faithful, wonderful, life after that, the guilt haunted him and with the guilt
was fear … can God forgive me. And I spoke gently to him, reminding him that
Jesus died to pay for his sins, and I spoke those words, “In the stead and by
the command of my Lord Jesus … I forgive you.” He was so relieved and thanked
me repeatedly. I was half way home when I got the phone call that he died
shortly after I left.
I forgive you.
Friends, where do we hear this message? Where do our
neighbors hear this message? Who stands up and says, on God’s behalf and with
his authority, I forgive you?
Most of the world is fixated on justice – by which we almost
mean vengeance. We want to see comeuppance. We want quid pro quo. We sometimes
speak of karma – even though that’s not Biblical – and it’s almost always in
the sense that those who do bad things will have bad things happen to them.
Who speaks, “I forgive you,” into that world that wants to
balance the scales? Who reminds the world that we can balance the scaled by
heaping more on them, or by wiping the debt off of them?
When we speak of a legacy, we speak of both that which we
have received from another and that which we pass on. This is our legacy – it
is Jesus crucified to atone for our sins. It is him interceding for those who
crucified him, “Father, forgive them.” It is that word that he spoke from the
cross – tetelesthai – It is finish, the debt is paid … I forgive you.
Who else is poised to speak that message into our community,
into our workplaces, our schools, and in our homes?
We are stewards of God’s forgiveness through Jesus’ death
and resurrection. And how would God have us steward this message of, “I forgive
you”? Would he have us put it in our liturgies and keep it here in the
sanctuary? Would he limit it to use in our homes with our children, or just
here among our friends? No, this is a message God wants rolling off of our lips
into the ears of the world so that every sinner might know the power of the
cross and hear those fearful beautiful words … I forgive you.
What do you think, does everyone want to hear those words
from God, “I forgive you”? No, no they don’t. If they did, they would be
beating down the doors of every church in town. But this message can be
uncomfortable. It has implications for how I live my life. It mean that I am
accountable.
But does everyone need to hear those words from God, “I
forgive you”? Yes, yet they do.
How will we do that? How to we place ourselves in situations
where we have opportunity to forgive people? Sometimes it happens very
naturally like in our families. “I’m sorry. I forgive you.” Other times it
takes relationships, conversations, time, dialogue, sorrow, pain, and a lot of
prayer before a person is ready to hear those words. Sometimes people hear them
by coming here to worship. Some people are not going to come to worship, but
might come to a special event like The Trial of Job. We need to look for
opportunities to welcome people here. Sometimes people hear as we engage the
community.
But if we don’t tell the world, “I forgive you.” Who will?
If God’s people – all of us – don’t carry this message in our hearts and lips,
how will they know our gracious loving savior?
You know, last week I talked about the shepherd’s legacy –
that he leaves the 99 to find the one. I talked about how this is Jesus’
mission, but he includes us in his mission. Well, this is Jesus’ message, “I
forgive you. I died and rose to forgive you and set you free from sin. ” It’s a
powerful message that changes people’s lives. It gives hope to the hopeless. It
gives love to the unloved. It gives reconciliation to those in conflict. It
gives life to the dead. It’s Jesus’ message, but he places is on our lips. No
my lips alone, but on our lips, to speak into this world.
Together as a congregation, we come together to proclaim
that message … and to make sure that message is spoken into our lives and in
our community. Our time, our talents, and our treasures are poured into getting
this message to those who carry sin’s load to help them to know that Jesus has
borne their load of sin to the cross, and his message to you, to me, to the
world is, “I forgive you.”
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