Reflections
on forgiveness probably won't be in short supply in the run-up to Easter, but
even so, out of the various Bible passages suggested to me for this entry in
our Lenten series, it's to this Psalm that I've felt most strongly drawn.
A few
years ago, I sent an e-mail that was well intentioned but ill-judged and poorly
expressed. It caused offence to a friend. I tried to retrieve the situation
with explanations and apologies, but these hit an immoveable wall. A friendship
ended; a light went out.
At the
time, trivial though the initial incident was, I felt keenly the black mark
which had been set against me. How much
worse, then, the experiences that can come when we've really done something
wrong - perhaps something serious. Shame: it's a powerful word in
English. Societies generally pardon some misdeeds but not others, and wronged
individuals may find it understandably hard to forgive. Even a genuinely
repentant miscreant, though wanting to make amends, may be expected to walk
with gaze cast forever downwards, carrying a crushing twin burden of personal
guilt and opprobrium from others.
What an
unspeakable relief, then, that God - the source of all justice, truth, beauty,
goodness and love - will wipe the slate clean when we recognise the real nature
of what we have done and turn from it to him. After the first liberation of
true repentance, no staring at the ground with Him: astonishingly, we're
invited to look Him in the eye. We may still face a mess in other respects, but
we have a solid foundation for beginning to put things right. Thank goodness.
Thank
God.
Là où les autres ont du mal à nous pardonner, le
pardon de Dieu reste une force profondément libératrice et créatrice.
"Christ, Forgive a Pentitent!" From Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.
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