Monday 29 August 2011

Forgiveness a Visble sign of Mercy

to forgive someone does not mean to excuse the harm done. No,  it does not and it cannot ever mean that . Understanding forgiveness at this level means to rob forgiveness of its essence and power. To choose to forgive someone is in fact a decision leading to something exquisite..  It is a decision to sever the connection which that "act" of betrayal has meant. It means the removal of permission to keep on rewounding. (memory) It means the the videotape has been destroyed and cannot be watched again. 
Rewatching a harm done with glasses of hatred, rage, condemnation simply keeps rewinding the tape and the wounding re commences time after time. Forgiveness means NO I will not go back there. I refuse and in doing so take back my authority and permission.
 To forgive is to become unbound from the chain of that committed sin. It means withdrawing permission from the abuser to keep re abusing and beginning on a journey of healing and the experience of radical Mercy."In Him we have redemption through His Blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses (Eph 1:7)
Forgiveness is reconciliation not necessarily with the abuser but reconciliation and a reclaiming of my "original me"  the "I" who was not wounded. Reconciling and reclaiming  this "I" in order that the wounded "me" is no longer needed or feels betrayed.  The memory remains but the pain will not. In this we have he images of Jesus post ressurrection where he showed the scars of his torture but the pain was not.  The "I" pre torture was seen but the torture no longer had effect because the post torture Jesus was radically new yet somehow the same.
Forgiveness leads not only to the healing of "my being" but begins the processes of not seeing another human (who sinned) as a monster but as a tragic and terrible sinner.
I'm reminded of Jesus who endured what he endured in order to give both the victim and the perpertrator a chance for a new beginning. He endured so that the murderer, rapist, terrorist, abortionist, the adulterer, the thief, child abuser, would have someone to intercede for them up until the last.
The Victim shares his/her pain with Jesus and together they complete suffering for salvation
(Col 1:24)