Sunday, April 7, 2019

God's Gift of Forgiveness

Pieter Bruegel's Christ and the Woman  Caught in Adultery
How many followed this year’s NCAA championship basketball games? Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. As the saying goes, what’s important is how you play the game, and how you live with what you learn.

Today’s word of God takes us back to Ancient Israel in the 6th century before Jesus. Babylonia had conquered the Hebrews; destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple; and deported many Hebrews. Yet God fired up the Hebrews with hope for the future. Set free by Persia, they returned to their homeland to rebuild. The author proclaims God will breathe hope into the Hebrews. Yes, God will usher in a new age, and a newly created people will praise God.

The author may well ask you and me: When have we breathed hope into the life of someone who is “down and out” with encouragement or a helping hand?

Paul writes his letter to the Christian community in Philippi, Greece from an unknown jail cell, perhaps in Rome. And what motivates Paul?  Paul proclaims that Jesus Christ “possesses” him. Yes, years before, Christ had turned Paul’s life “upside down” on the way to Damascus. And ever since, proclaiming the good news--Jesus Christ is alive.  And because He lives, we live-- was Paul’s one passion in life. And so Paul sets his eyes on “what lies ahead”: eternal life.

In the Gospel of John today, we hear that Jesus meets a woman who had been caught in an adulterous relationship. I wonder if Nathaniel Hawthorne read this Gospel story before he wrote The Scarlet Letter.

Anyway, Jesus says to us in the Gospel story, “Don’t be so negatively judgmental about other people.” All of us need forgiveness. That’s why Jesus came: to forgive, heal, transform us, to save us from death and propel us into a glorious future, like Jesus did to this down-and-out woman and to her accusers. And what about the man in the adulterous relationship, who was as guilty as the woman?

This story invites you and me to reflect on our own willingness to forgive people who have wronged us, intentionally or unintentionally. Jesus says forgiveness is a primary characteristic of discipleship.

We have to forgive ourselves as well as others so we can move forward with our lives. To forgive as Christ forgives sometimes seems impossible to do on our own. It calls for a humility, a generosity, a spirit of compassion. But Christ doesn’t ask us to forgive on our own. He simply asks that we participate in his gift of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is an act of the will that overrides negative feelings about someone. Forgiveness is possible, not when we try to forgive, not on our own, but when we trust in God to bring healing. As God constantly searches out the lost and the stranger, so should we. Forgiveness can be a long journey, but at the end lies freedom and new life.