One day, Jim fell ill and was admitted into the hospital. The doctor told him that it would be good for him to settle whatever grievances that he had in case he didn’t make it. And so Jim called Pat to his bedside and said to him, “Pat, we have been enemies for all these years and we never reconcile with one another. The doctor told me that I should settle all my grievances and so I say let bygones be bygones. I forgive you and ask for your forgiveness as well”
And Pat, in the same spirit said, “Yes let bygones be bygones. Life is too short to be unforgiving” And they talked a bit more and when the time came for Pat to leave, Jim said, “Remember Pat, this counts only if I die!”
The story illustrates to us that on many occasions, when people say that they forgive a person, very often they are just paying a lip service to the word. Deep inside, the unforgiveness still festers. Everyday in our lives, we encounter situations where friction will occur and some form of reconciliation is necessary in order to move on. But many a times, we choose not to be reconciled and this causes us to be hampered down.
There are some people who just want to hold on to the grudge they feel towards another person. And to make it worse, they feed and live on that grudge, letting it grow and fester as the years go by. Our hatred and anger at that one person is like throwing firewood into a fire, causing it to grow and burn even more fiery. And before we know it, the fire will just consume us and burn us to death.
Unforgivess is like having a wound on us and we refuse to treat it in hope that it’ll heal or go away. But we know that wounds do not heal on its own. Even if it does, it takes a long time before it heals and even then, it may not heal completely and our bodily health would have been affected by the wound.
Have you ever had the feeling that you are over burdened, weighed down with a heavy load, or living day to day with a heavy heart? Unforgiveness is like that. It’s like a stone tied round our ankle and we’re just dragging it everywhere we go. Forgiveness is to throw away the stone and be free of the burden that we are carrying.
In his book “Travelling light” by, author Max Lucado speaks of the importance of letting go of our burdens and travelling light. This means to let go of all our unforgiveness, all that is negative in us and be free. Travelling light means to be free, to be liberated of what is harmful to us.
Jesus himself is an excellent example of the act of forgiveness. He teaches us to forgive our brothers not 7, but 70 times 7 times. Of course, this does not mean that we start counting and stop forgiving when we have satisfied that number. What he meant was we need to forgive continually and not stop because we feel that we have forgiven enough.
Forgiveness does not mean just saying “I forgive you” and be done with it. Forgiveness involves more than lip service. We need to mean it in our hearts as well, to genuinely mean what we say. There are people who says “I forgive you” but will continually bring up the person’s faults and wrongdoing. This is not forgiveness. If we still choose to hold on to the grudge that we have against another person, then forgiveness is just a lip service.
When Jesus forgave the woman caught in adultery, he did not accuse her of anything or bring up a litany of her sins. We all know what he said to the crowd, “Let those who did not sin cast the first stone.” And no one dared to cast a stone and they all left. And Jesus, with infinite love and compassion, forgave that woman and told her to go in peace. Are we able to do this, to truly understand that no one of us has not sinned and therefore refused to forgive another? Can anyone of us truly say that we are righteous and others are not?
The ultimate act of forgiveness was by Jesus himself. He forgave his executors, saying that they did not know what they do. He also forgave the thief who was hung with him. This total act of forgives is an act that we can learn from. Of course, we will not be able to forgive like Jesus did as we are just human. But we can do our best to forgive. All we need is God’s grace and spirit to enable us to forgive from our hearts and not just from our lips.
All of us are familiar with the Lord’s prayer, the Our Father. One of the lines is “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us” Jesus tells us in order to be forgiven, we need to forgive others as well. And I think we also need to forgive ourselves.
So let us, all of us, start by choosing to live a life free of unforgiveness. Let us be able to truly recite the Our Father with our hearts and not with our lips.
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