Advent and Forgiveness

I've quoted it often enough. I'm not sure of the source. "Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person (or your enemy) to die." Advent, then, offers something else to drink. Instead of living in the wrong of what someone else has done or said, it is living in the undeserved right of what God has done and said. To indulge in unforgiveness is to beg to be bound to a curse. It is to plead with evil, "come into my heart." Putting aside the accuracy of the information we use to resent and blame another, the accommodation it requires of our souls is extensive and costly. It shows how incapable we as humans are in life of actually helping ourselves. There is no logic to unforgiveness. It feels right, but it is idiotic. "I win," we gasp as we crumble to the ground with the poison on our breath.

Jesus Himself in Scripture removes any possibility of assurance of salvation for those committed to resentment. As a pastor counseling others, I often feel the harshness of Christ's words following the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6. God Himself resents the resentful. Those who live to blame will shoulder the blame. When it comes to forgiveness, Christ seems to say, we only get what we give. Forgiveness is not a condition for salvation; it is salvation. If you receive Christ as Savior, you receive and give forgiveness. No separation is possible. To say the name of Jesus Christ is to say the name of forgiveness. They are both sides of the same coin.

The birth of Christ and all that flows from it is this coin. He is the sole means available on earth and in life for becoming a completely forgiving forgiven person. No one can attain spiritual perfection in this life, but all of us can eventually attain forgiveness. No matter how quickly the bile rises within us at the thought of unimaginable injustice, the touch of Christ can transform us. It is not magic; it is Advent. And it may take time. It may be "slow." Just like with Advent, waiting is sometimes involved. Again, Christ is forgiveness. We can't have one without the other. We can be eternally grateful that God who requires forgiveness in and from us also produces forgiveness in and for us. Christ, again, is how he does this. Resentment is the mountain that a little bit of faith can move. For some, it's a far more difficult task than to move a physical mountain. Christ has come, however, not only to help us with the very difficult but to carry us through the otherwise impossible.

PRAYER: Lord, many are bound by unforgiveness like prisoners in an invisible prison. Release them. Spirit, speak to me about my own heart. Survey my spirit. Take away all blame, the blame I deserve and the blame I believe others deserve. You were born to become all this blame for us on the cross. You were born so we could live in freedom instead of die in bondage. We have and need no strength or ability of our own. Forgiveness, as salvation, is Your accomplishment and Your gift to us. We receive this, some through tears and pain. Amen.

TOMORROW: Advent and Fear