Entry into the City, by John August Swanson. Used by permission of the John August Swanson Studio.
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He is an innocent victim.
He didn’t do it.
But he isn’t anybody’s fool, either.
We hear him pray for the forgiveness of his enemies, of his executioners, and we might mistake this prayer for weakness. It is not our way. We want our hero to triumph over the enemy. We want a satisfying fight sequence. We want a win.
But here’s the thing: forgiveness is less theatrical, but vastly more difficult than vengeance. This Lent, a few of us looked at forgiveness from the perspective of a couples therapist and author. Her name is Janis Abrahms Spring, and she works with couples on major betrayals — affairs, abuse, the hardest stories. Her take on forgiveness is that it requires the participation of the offender. So if I hurt you and then leave your life, or die, then in this view of forgiveness, you can’t forgive me, because I’m not there to earn that forgiveness. You can only do the healthy work of acceptance, on your own.
Now, this is not often how we understand God’s forgiveness: God forgives us unconditionally, we learn, and we are often deeply relieved by this, maybe because we instinctively know that we could never fully earn that forgiveness, from God or from the persons we harmed, particularly when we have taken something from someone that can never be given back. We caused someone’s death, or we irreparably shattered trust, or we said something vicious that can’t be taken back, or we did some other kind of damage that can’t be undone, can’t be fixed. We have no time machine. What’s done is done. Yet God forgives us unconditionally: this I believe, and this I testify to you. God in Jesus, at the Cross, overcomes the powers of Sin and Death, forever. God’s resurrecting life shatters those powers, once, and once for all. God puts away all our sins. We need not, we should not feel shame: shame is the ungodly mistake of believing that because I did something I shouldn’t have, I am permanently damaged, or I am worthless. This belief is offensive in God’s sight, God who made us with perfect love, and raises us up in redemption, healing, and peace.
So, shame doesn’t play a part in any of this. Yet something more happens than just our passive acceptance of unconditional forgiveness. If we accept God’s forgiveness, if we take it in, if we truly surrender as God in Jesus unconditionally restores us to our full loveliness as God’s children, and if we practice that forgiveness with one another, we will inevitably do more: we will respond to that unconditional forgiveness with genuine hard work, with our own effort to make amends, with our own labor in God’s Easter garden, pulling the weeds and clearing the stones of Sin and Death, always with God’s help.
And so, God forgives unconditionally, but God in Jesus also looks at Peter, and in that horrible moment of eye contact, Peter realizes his grave mistake, and realizes too that Jesus knows exactly what happened.
God forgives unconditionally, but Peter then staggers away, weeping bitterly.
God forgives unconditionally, but Peter works hard for the rest of his life to understand and share God’s forgiving power, God’s reconciling good news, with others.
God forgives unconditionally, but in my understanding of him, Peter holds in his heart, for a very long time, that holy and harrowing look of Jesus.
Peter holds that look in remembrance not out of shame, but so that he can remember that the deep, searing grace of God is still working on him.
After his wordless encounter with Peter, Jesus, on the Cross, prays to God the Father for the forgiveness of the others who betrayed and finally executed him – and for the forgiveness of all betrayers, all oppressors, all executioners. This prayer of Jesus can be for us a glimpse into the life of the Holy Trinity. And in this glimpse, we see that the Holy Trinity holds forgiveness in the center of their council, in the center of their creative life.
God who creates, God who forgives, God who inspires: God looks at us, and God’s gaze is terrible, yet also merciful. Now, again — this bears repeating — there is no shame in this work. None. Shame is the emotional wreckage of a lie told to us by the evil one. Be at peace: hear the Good News: you are forgiven, and you are lovely in God’s sight.
But forgiveness inevitably leads to hard work. Heroic work, even. Holy work, beginning in this Holy Week. We will pray this week for the whole world, praying as Jesus does that God will forgive everyone, even the worst offenders, and learning from Jesus how to forgive one another. We will pray that we ourselves will participate in the healing of the whole world.
And right here, in all this hard work, in all this forgiveness, right here is the deepest, most astonishing joy. Right here is the searing yet lavish grace of God.
Here is everything we hope for, and everything we need.
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Preached on Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, Year C, April 10, 2022, at Grace Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Isaiah 50:4-9a
Psalm 31:9-16
Philippians 2:5-11
Luke 22:14-23:56