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May 4, 2008
The Beauty & Mystery of Forgiveness
a sermon on Acts 7.55-60
by
David C. Mauldin
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama
“You accursed
wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will
raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his
laws.” So said the second of seven brothers who were tortured and killed by the
tyrant Antiochus IV because they would not give up their Jewish faith for
paganism. The account comes from 2 Maccabees, which is not in Protestant Bibles
but is a Jewish writing from the time between the Old and New Testaments. The
fourth brother said: “One cannot but choose to die at the hands of mortals and
to cherish the hope God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there
will be no resurrection to life!” The fifth told the wicked king: “Because you
have authority among mortals, though you also are mortal, you do what you
please. But do not think that God has forsaken our people. Keep on, and see how
his mighty power will torture you and your descendants!” The sixth when he was
about to die, said, “Do not think that you will go unpunished for having tried
to fight against God!” The seventh: “What are you waiting for? I will not obey
the king‟s command, but I obey the command of the law that was given to our
ancestors through Moses. But you, who have contrived all sorts of evil against
the Hebrews, will certainly not escape the hands of God. … You, unholy wretch,
you most defiled of all mortals, do not be elated in vain and puffed up by
uncertain hopes, when you raise your hand against the children of heaven. You
have not yet escaped the judgment of the almighty, all-seeing God. For our
brothers after enduring a brief suffering have drunk of ever-flowing life, under
God‟s covenant; but you, by the judgment of God, will receive just punishment
for your arrogance.” These martyrs, who are held up as worthy examples of
faithfulness, each with their dying breath cursed their tormentors. Their
attitude and their words make perfect sense. “God will pay you back for what you
are doing to me!” I get that. I know where it comes from. It comes from faith in
God, confidence in God‟s justice, and the feeling
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that those who hurt us ought to pay. This is what we would expect a good,
faithful martyr to say. Then there‟s Stephen. Stephen was one of the original
seven chosen as deacons. He was a powerful evangelist. His preaching got him
into trouble with other Jews who did not believe in Jesus. The brought him
before the high council and pressed false charges against them. Most of Acts 7
is given to his defense speech. Basically he retold the story of Israel,
highlighting how God‟s people had often rejected those sent to save them.
Joseph‟s brothers rejected him, but God used Joseph to save all their lives.
Israel rejected Moses, more than once, but God used him to rescue them from
slavery. Then, of course, there were the prophets. His point was clear: By
rejecting Jesus, the authorities had done what God‟s people tend to do, reject
the one sent by God to save them. He also took a shot at the temple, suggesting
that ever since the incident with the golden calf, God‟s people had never been
far from idolatry, and it was their idolatry that kept them from recognizing
Jesus. I read you the rest of the story. The best defense is not always a good
offense. They rushed Steven, dragged him out of the city, and stoned him to
death. As he was dying, he prayed: “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” …
That‟s absolutely amazing, isn‟t it? He knows they are doing wrong. He uses the
word sin. He knows they deserve God‟s wrath. Yet he asks God to forgive them.
Why? Stephen was a Greek-speaking Jew. He cut his teeth on the story of the
seven brothers. He knew the price of faithfulness, and he was willing to pay it.
But his attitude toward his persecutors is the opposite of all he had learned
from his childhood. Where did he find the grace to forgive, even as he was being
stoned to death? I know he was echoing the words of Jesus on the cross. Jesus
set an example, and Stephen followed it. True. But how? How did he do it? Why,
at the crucial moment, did his heart bring forth mercy—not hatred, not curses,
not lust for revenge, none of that … mercy. This is hard to understand. I
believe human beings are incapable of forgiving one another apart from divine
grace. I know forgiveness. I know what it is. I know what it costs. I know how
it can hurt. I know how it can heal. What I don‟t know—even though I have done
it myself—is how to do it. Most of you already know about my father‟s violent
temper and the night he almost killed me. Some of you know how he and I met
again five years later at the invitation of his father, but he never followed up
on that. It took a long time, but I was able to forgive him. Not because I grew
spiritually to the point where forgiveness was possible. I don‟t think that‟s
quite what happened. I didn‟t set off to find forgiveness and at long last
succeeded. Forgiveness found me. I discovered it in my heart, to my surprise,
because I didn‟t put it there. I didn‟t build it or cook it up from scratch. God
gave it to me, as a gift. I don‟t think real forgiveness comes in any other way.
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I think, of course, of Corrie Ten Boom, who reluctantly shook hands with a
former SS officer who had mistreated her and her sister in a concentration camp.
After the war he became a Christian, and he sought her forgiveness. She didn‟t
want to give it. She knew she should, but it wasn‟t in her heart. She shook his
hand anyway, and in that moment she received grace. Suddenly in her heart she
did find forgiveness. She forgave the man, not from her own strength, but from
God‟s. Rosalyn is friends with a couple whose daughter was murdered. A man
killed her, stole her car, drove to Denver, and shot at a police officer. The
woman‟s father visited her murderer in prison and forgave him. How did he do
that? He did not intervene to lessen the sentence, and he should not have—we
don‟t want someone like that on the streets. Forgiving does not mean putting
yourself or others in danger. But he did forgive. Forgiveness is a difficult,
costly thing to do. No … not difficult … impossible. I really think it is. We
cheapen forgiveness when we treat it lightly. Instead of forgiving, we try to
rise above the offense. “Well, my friend did this, and it really hurt me; but …
our friendship is worth more than that. Plus, it wasn‟t so bad.” That works for
minor offenses, but not the big ones. When we run up against a serious sin
committed against us, we aren‟t able to do it. Having made forgiveness a cheap
and light thing, we are not even sure we ought to forgive the big stuff.
Consider my predicament. I am a Christian pastor. Christianity teaches
forgiveness. Forgiving is not an incidental part of the faith, either. It is
right at the center. Jesus even said we have to forgive others if we want to be
forgiven. He told a story about it—a servant who was forgiven a great debt but
refused to forgive a relatively small one. So you see, if I do not encourage
people to forgive those who sin against them, I am not a good pastor. And yet,
when someone comes to me with a serious grievance against another person, I
often feel reluctant to mention forgiveness. Pretend you are me. Someone comes
in and describes a terrible thing that was done to him. I‟ll leave the specifics
to your imagination. How do you say, “You have to forgive”? Many times I have
waited to mention forgiveness until I feel the person can at least hear what I
am saying, even though she may not be anywhere near ready to forgive. I also
point out the healing power of forgiving. I do believe that until you forgive
the one who has wronged you, that sin goes on hurting you. The only way to be
free is to forgive. I know this is true. Nevertheless, forgiving ought not be
done selfishly. I am not even sure it can be. Forgiving is a gift you give the
one who wronged you. Is a gift given selfishly really a gift? Even as a pastor,
I do not feel I have a moral right to tell someone to forgive. So I don‟t. I
tell them, “Jesus says, „You must forgive.‟” And there‟s a world of difference.
Who am I to tell someone to forgive? Nobody. But Jesus … he is someone. He is
someone
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who knows the cost of forgiving. He has done it, and he has made it possible.
Without him—without his cross—we ought not to forgive. Why would we? Forgiving
would be an affront to justice and goodness. Evil should be punished. But the
cross changes things. First, Jesus can command you to forgive because he has
forgiven you. And he can expect you to give grace because you have received it
from him. You look at the cross and you realize what Jesus did for you, so that
you could be forgiven. You see how costly forgiveness is, how beautiful, how
precious, how life-giving. For you it means the difference between eternal
damnation and eternal life with God. It means, literally, everything. Grace is
the most precious, most beautiful, and strongest force in the universe. Having
been forgiven, you can forgive. Miroslav Volf is a Christian theologian who
knows about forgiveness. He learned it from his parents when he was a boy. When
he was very young, he had an older brother, Daniel, who was five. Daniel liked
to run off and play with a group of soldiers training nearby. This was in
Yugoslavia. Volf is Croatian, and if you know anything about the history of that
region, you know the extensive ethnic and religious violence perpetrated and
suffered there. The soldiers were bored and loved the boy and played with him.
One day they let him ride on a horse-drawn cart, but as they were passing
through a gate, the boy fell, and his head got caught between the cart and the
gate. He died. His father had no love for the army. After World War II he had
been unjustly arrested and put into a concentration camp. Now a soldier had been
responsible for his son‟s death. Yet father and mother went to the court and
refused to press charges. Before that communist court, they gave witness to
their faith in Christ, saying, “The Word of God tells us to forgive as God in
Christ has forgiven us, and so we decided to forgive.” The soldier was
heartbroken and ended up in a mental hospital. The father visited him. How
simple! God forgave us, he told us to forgive. So we decided to do it. If you
want to read what Volf has to say about forgiveness, I recommend his book Free
of Charge. It is the source for the quote on your bulletin cover this morning.
The second way Jesus‟ cross helps us forgive is this: You have been wronged. You
feel someone ought to pay. It is fair. It is just. It is right. Jesus comes to
you and he says, “You have to forgive this person.” And you answer, “Lord, how
can I? I have been hurt. Somebody has to pay!” And he says, “You are right, of
course. But I will pay it. You forgive this person. Let me pay the price. I have
paid for your sins; now let me pay for this person‟s too.” We know that on the
cross Christ paid the debt for our sin. We usually think of this debt as
something owed to God. Sin offends God‟s honor, God‟s holiness, God‟s justice,
the goodness God put into the world. We never make God the Father to be the
mean, petty tyrant who wants what is due and Jesus the loving Savior who pays
it, because that does not do justice to the reality that Jesus and the Father
are One. Yet we know
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God has created a moral universe and God establishes justice, so in order to
forgive us, God satisfied the demands of justice on the cross. I wonder if that
goes far enough, however. Maybe the debt is also due to the victims of our sins.
Well, not due to them exactly, but what I said earlier: Someone hurts you and
you feel they ought to pay. I believe that basic human moral instinct is
correct. If it is, forgiveness is neither possible nor desirable … unless,
someone else pays the price. Not just anyone can do that. But Jesus can, and he
did. He is God. He is pure and sinless. I don‟t have time to get too deep
theologically on this point, but on the cross, Jesus paid the price for sin. The
reason he can tell you to forgive someone is, he already paid the price for
their offense. And if you hold on to that sin and do not forgive, you are in a
very real sense telling Jesus that his sacrifice might have been good enough for
God, but it is not good enough for you. How? How can we forgive? Not blow off an
offense or pretend it didn‟t happen, but to recognize it for the evil it is,
name the guilty party, suffer the devastating effects, and then … forgive. This
is what Jesus asks us to do. For us, it is impossible. But with God all things
are possible. Amen. rev_mauldin@yahoo.com
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