The story in today’s gospel is but another example of how Jesus compelled people to live a new reality. Where people were overburdened and without hope, with just a touch of his hand or a word from his lips, he healed their pain and gave them hope. But note. Forgiveness came first. Then came healing. And in the healing, he gave them a new way of living, a way of living that demanded they also learn to forgive and accept forgiveness.
Let me give you an example. I knew a person who, after her parents divorced, became consumed with anger at them because they were no longer the same mommy and daddy she had grown up with, that she wasn’t able to have a decent relationship with either of them. Unable to forgive them she couldn’t move forward with her own life. She functions, but she was, and is miserable.
Refusing to forgive is like rearranging the furniture in you house, but then walking through it as if you hadn’t done a thing. Obviously your going to walk into chairs and couches, trip over foot stools and electric cords and end tables, and probably end up with a bunch of bruises you won’t remember where they came from.
It works the same way with our spirits. When we forgive, when we experience forgiveness from others and from God, our spiritual house is rearranged, but we don’t have to worry about bruising ourselves on the clutter of our former sins.
In our first reading we read: “Thus says the Lord: Remember not the event of the past, the things of long ago consider not; See I am something new.............It is I, I, who wipe out for my own sake, your offenses; your sins I remember no more.” And, in our second reading Paul encouraged the Corinthians to accept God’s “Yes” and allow God to put his seal on them, and his Spirit in their hearts.
If we refuse to forgive or to accept forgiveness from others or from God, we’ll keep on tripping over old hurts, old sins, God will not be able to put his seal on our hearts, and we’ll never be able to move forward with hope.
What do you think God’s forgiveness feels like? What do you think his “Yes”, his seal on our heart feel like?
I read a story that I think comes close to describing it. Let me share it with you:
An elderly woman told a story about the time when she, as a small child noticed a teacup on a shelf,
a teacup that belonged to her mother’s great-grandmother. Now her mother really loved that teacup, and she wanted to love it too. So she took it down from the shelf, examined it and played with it and served some tea to her cat it in. But then, the teacup slipped from her little hands and shattered on the floor.
She was frightened and upset, not quite sure what was going to happen to her or to her mother when she found out. When her mother came and saw what she had done, she saw on her mother’s face a mixture of shock and anger and sorrow. As her mother picked up the broken pieces of the antique teacup, through her tears she looked at the little girl and asked, “What happened here?” The little girl confessed that she had dropped it.
But instead of anger, instead of accusing words, “how clumsy can you get?” or “I’ll get you for this this,” or “You’ll pay for this,” or “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” or “Go to your room” – instead of those words, her mother took the girl in her arms and told her why the teacup was special to her. And then she told her daughter just how special she was to her.
It’s a story not unlike the story of the prodigal son where the father runs out to meet his son, embraces him, and throws a party for him. My son who was lost has returned. That experience. that forgiveness is ours for the asking. All we have to do, like the little girl or the prodigal son, is to be sorry, to admit our sin and to ask God for forgiveness, but as I said, to receive it, we also have to offer it.
Until my friend can forgive her parents for not being able to hold on to the love that first brought them together,
whatever the reason for their separation, I don’t believe she will ever be able to experience God’s forgiveness, because if she can’t forgive, how will she ever really believe God can or will either? She’ll never be able to move forward filled with hope, because she will continue to trip over her old hurts, preventing God from ever putting his seal on her heart.
When we believe in the depths of our hearts that, there is nothing we’ve done that is so bad, or done so often, that God won’t forgive it, and that whatever that sin was, it is forgiven, forever gone from God’s memory, and, when, like the prodigal son or the girl who broke the teacup, we can almost feel Jesus holding us, and rocking us back and forth, and kissing away our tears, and telling us how much he loves us, then, at that moment, I believe we will know what real forgiveness feels like and we will find ourselves walking into the future, still subject to sin, but filled with renewed grace and hope that we can control it, not the other way around.
Next Sunday we begin the season of Lent. It’s a perfect time for us to forgive all who need our forgiveness, and to come to God with that sin in the sacrament of reconciliation, so that we may experience God’s forgiveness and healing,better equipped to imitate him in brining forgiveness and healing and hope to a broken world.
Let me give you an example. I knew a person who, after her parents divorced, became consumed with anger at them because they were no longer the same mommy and daddy she had grown up with, that she wasn’t able to have a decent relationship with either of them. Unable to forgive them she couldn’t move forward with her own life. She functions, but she was, and is miserable.
Refusing to forgive is like rearranging the furniture in you house, but then walking through it as if you hadn’t done a thing. Obviously your going to walk into chairs and couches, trip over foot stools and electric cords and end tables, and probably end up with a bunch of bruises you won’t remember where they came from.
It works the same way with our spirits. When we forgive, when we experience forgiveness from others and from God, our spiritual house is rearranged, but we don’t have to worry about bruising ourselves on the clutter of our former sins.
In our first reading we read: “Thus says the Lord: Remember not the event of the past, the things of long ago consider not; See I am something new.............It is I, I, who wipe out for my own sake, your offenses; your sins I remember no more.” And, in our second reading Paul encouraged the Corinthians to accept God’s “Yes” and allow God to put his seal on them, and his Spirit in their hearts.
If we refuse to forgive or to accept forgiveness from others or from God, we’ll keep on tripping over old hurts, old sins, God will not be able to put his seal on our hearts, and we’ll never be able to move forward with hope.
What do you think God’s forgiveness feels like? What do you think his “Yes”, his seal on our heart feel like?
I read a story that I think comes close to describing it. Let me share it with you:
An elderly woman told a story about the time when she, as a small child noticed a teacup on a shelf,
a teacup that belonged to her mother’s great-grandmother. Now her mother really loved that teacup, and she wanted to love it too. So she took it down from the shelf, examined it and played with it and served some tea to her cat it in. But then, the teacup slipped from her little hands and shattered on the floor.
She was frightened and upset, not quite sure what was going to happen to her or to her mother when she found out. When her mother came and saw what she had done, she saw on her mother’s face a mixture of shock and anger and sorrow. As her mother picked up the broken pieces of the antique teacup, through her tears she looked at the little girl and asked, “What happened here?” The little girl confessed that she had dropped it.
But instead of anger, instead of accusing words, “how clumsy can you get?” or “I’ll get you for this this,” or “You’ll pay for this,” or “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” or “Go to your room” – instead of those words, her mother took the girl in her arms and told her why the teacup was special to her. And then she told her daughter just how special she was to her.
It’s a story not unlike the story of the prodigal son where the father runs out to meet his son, embraces him, and throws a party for him. My son who was lost has returned. That experience. that forgiveness is ours for the asking. All we have to do, like the little girl or the prodigal son, is to be sorry, to admit our sin and to ask God for forgiveness, but as I said, to receive it, we also have to offer it.
Until my friend can forgive her parents for not being able to hold on to the love that first brought them together,
whatever the reason for their separation, I don’t believe she will ever be able to experience God’s forgiveness, because if she can’t forgive, how will she ever really believe God can or will either? She’ll never be able to move forward filled with hope, because she will continue to trip over her old hurts, preventing God from ever putting his seal on her heart.
When we believe in the depths of our hearts that, there is nothing we’ve done that is so bad, or done so often, that God won’t forgive it, and that whatever that sin was, it is forgiven, forever gone from God’s memory, and, when, like the prodigal son or the girl who broke the teacup, we can almost feel Jesus holding us, and rocking us back and forth, and kissing away our tears, and telling us how much he loves us, then, at that moment, I believe we will know what real forgiveness feels like and we will find ourselves walking into the future, still subject to sin, but filled with renewed grace and hope that we can control it, not the other way around.
Next Sunday we begin the season of Lent. It’s a perfect time for us to forgive all who need our forgiveness, and to come to God with that sin in the sacrament of reconciliation, so that we may experience God’s forgiveness and healing,better equipped to imitate him in brining forgiveness and healing and hope to a broken world.
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