Dear Friends,

 

There has been a lot of discussion in the press recently about forgiveness.

It was all sparked off by a 10 minute slot in a local TV programme which featured my friend and colleague the Rev. Julie Nicholson, whose daughter Jenny was killed in the London bombings on July 7th. Julie admitted, during this programme, that she couldn’t forgive the killer of her daughter, and that this made it impossible, for the time being at least, for her to stand behind an altar in church and speak words of forgiveness and reconciliation during the service of Holy Communion.

 

The response to her admission has been overwhelming, and for the most part, very supportive of her honesty. Her words seemed to give a huge number of people permission to admit that actually forgiveness is so costly that it is sometimes impossible.

And just because someone is a Christian, that doesn’t mean that forgiving comes easily.

One woman wrote to say that 25 years ago her daughter had been murdered; she found it impossible to forgive the murderer – and as a result, felt excluded by the members of her church, who had all felt that she really ought to offer forgiveness. At last, freed from the burden of guilt for her lack of forgiveness, she had felt able to go into a church, light a candle and say a prayer, and thus allow the healing process to begin.

 

Forgiveness can never be cheap, for either party. One correspondent to the press was a Jewish rabbi, who commented that anyone who read the gospels would realise that Jesus only forgave people who actually repented of what they had done. It is essentially a two-way process – which is why the recent series of TV programmes in which Archbishop Desmond Tutu brought together the two parties of violent crimes, and began opening up a painful dialogue between them, was so powerful; it showed what huge demands the process of forgiveness makes on both sides.

Easter is about forgiveness – and about the new life which can only begin to flower when the power of evil has been broken by the victory of love over hate.  The traditional Good Friday hymn, ‘There is a green hill’, puts it so simply: ‘He died that we might be forgiven’.  Many words have been written and preached down the centuries to try to explain why Jesus died – including the theory that the wrath of an angry God could only be satisfied by the sacrifice of his beloved Son. I find that theory is a reflection more of vengeful human nature than that of the God I believe in. What I am sure of  is that on that first Good Friday, God experienced all the pain and anger human beings can go through when the most tragic and horrific things happen to their loved ones, but that he was not prepared to let evil have the last word: life-giving love won the day. And though when the risen Jesus appeared to his friends he still bore the scars of his suffering for them to see and touch, the process of healing had begun, and forgiveness was possible for those who could admit their need of it.

 

The honesty comes when we acknowledge how hard and costly it is when we really forgive someone and mean it; and when we’re willing to admit our own need of forgiveness – all of us, for one reason or another. So many families and relationships are split and embittered because of an unwillingness to forgive – often a quarrel so long ago that people have almost forgotten what it was about. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this Easter that life-giving power of forgiveness could come into those situations and begin the process of healing, with both sides admitting their need to turn away from the mistakes of the past and begin again Those words ‘I’m sorry’ can be like a key to open up a different kind of future…..

And if we really can’t find it in our hearts to forgive, or if the person who has wronged us has turned their back and cannot or will not respond to our forgiveness, then all we can do is to leave it in God’s hands, knowing that, because of what happened on Good Friday, he understands.  May Easter bring you peace, freedom, and new beginnings.

 

With love,

Rosey