March 22, 2016
thoughtfully penned by Joseph Ostrander
“Our Most Holy Abba…forgive us our billion dollar trespasses and debts, as we forgive those niggling trespasses, and nickel-and-dime debts owed us…”
As the volunteer blog provocateur and amateur theologian, I should be very upfront about this disclaimer: I am the last one that should be writing a post on the subject of forgiveness. Yet it seems an appropriate topic on this last week of Lent…
As we approach Good Friday and the gruesome centrality of our Christian faith, the Calvary Cross, my theological assessment is this: the cross is no longer the place where Jesus paid the price for my sin(s) to a debt demanding God the Father that ordered, and required His Son’s sacrificial death. Instead, I envision the cross as the place where Jesus suffered the effects of all of humanity’s collective besetting sinfulness—dramatically acted out as the sin of scapegoating violence...
The wrath Jesus assuaged by His death was ours, not God the Father’s. The violent price He paid was the consequence of accurately reflecting the character of His Father, and doing and speaking only what the Father truly represented. He embodied the heart of His Father without compromise, living out the truth and refusing to play religious or political games with those that wielded earthly authority. Because He ran counter to the world system He came to boldly expose, He paid the ultimate cost, but it was not the result of God the Father’s judicial sentence, it was literally at the hands of a blind, sickly, deceived, conflicted, weak and needy humanity…
I used to believe that God’s required default response to sin was punishment, avoidable only by the horrid transaction of Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross. At this later-in-life theological phase of my faith journey, I now am passionately convinced that God has only one response to the worst collective sin ever committed: forgiveness, full and free…
Whoa Ostrander…what is it you’re suggesting???
Look at it this way:
Humanity commits the worst atrocity it is guilty of: it murders the innocent Immanuel in the most despicable and denigrating way possible. It is the apogee of conniving, wicked, expedient and wanton human violence. And how does Immanuel respond? Even as nails are being driven into his flesh, Jesus responds by crying out: “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing!”
And then Jesus surprises everyone by returning from the grave, and what does He announce? Jesus announces not righteous vengeance and the divine threat of punishment, but shalom. Peace. He absorbs the worst of humanity’s sin and declares peace and forgiveness…
But that is a deeper topic for another rumination…
What I want to address is our response to emulating our Lord and Savior’s attitude: forgiving those that have offended us or withheld restitution for wrongs done to us…
Ouch.
Yet the very nature of The Lord’s Prayer has this interesting nuance to it: it is a prayer outline in the plural tense…
Yeah. It is a prayer that is a collective set of affirmations and petitions that contains the accumulated weight of all the saints, living and dead, throughout the history of the Church; the ecclesia, the “called out ones”…
It reverses the angry mob's demand of, "Crucify Him!" that we can also be tempted to cry out in response to those that have wronged us...
As difficult as the process of forgiveness can be for the individual saint, the very saint that has endured the worst-of-the-worst of human trespasses does not approach the prospect alone and overwhelmed…
The central character of the Godhead, forgiveness, is not the impossible task demanded by an aloof and distant deity. No. But let’s not minimize the reality: forgiveness is the most difficult of godly qualities that each saint must choose to wrestle with as we, collectively, release anew the initial, “Father forgive them!” heart cry of our dying Savior that He declared to a dark and needy world on that original Good Friday two millennia ago…
“Our Most Holy Abba…forgive us our billion dollar trespasses and debts, as we forgive those niggling trespasses, and nickel-and-dime debts owed us…”
And help me, O Lord, in my weakness, as I join with all the saints in this most difficult of godly qualities You have asked us to participate in: forgiving others as You have forgiven us…
Think about…
Amen.