Pierruse. Henri de Touluse-Lautrec.
You are crushed. You didn’t see it coming. It is unfair and unforgivable. You are hurt and confused. You deserve an apology. You beg God for justice, but the reply comes—Forgive. But there is no way to forgive when there is no apology, and the injustice is so painful.
Jesus says, “I am the way.” The wholly Innocent One, falsely accused and brutally condemned, stood before His corrupt accusers, not in resentment or cowardice, but the noble silence of compassion.1 Then, in unspeakable anguish, as He hung filthy, brutalized, and bleeding on the cross, He used His last excruciating breath to ask the Father to forgive those who had nailed Him there.2This is the witness of the cross and history’s most intense love picture.
Love calls us to lay down our lives and take the initiative to reach back in forgiveness to the one who has wounded us. We waste so much energy in the trap of resentment and self-pity. Love freely offers forgiveness. It flows from a heart that is free. Empowered by the Spirit, we try not to react in anger. We do not defend ourselves, define the other person, or deny our guilt, remembering that our opinions and biases are not the whole picture. We try to keep our mouths closed and hearts open, seeing their brokenness rather than their failure to give us what we need, absorbing any painful arrows of negativity as Jesus did.
The only way we can ever become free enough to forgive is to consciously release the other to God. This release grows from a sorrowful and compassionate awareness of the frailties and failings of every human heart. We can’t change or fix anyone, but we can choose to stand in our circumstances, living out our high calling to forgive and offer love in the midst of it all. We take our broken heart, as well as the one who has broken it, to prayer every day for as long as it takes to forgive. In this quiet space, we release them into God’s care, slowly but surely moving from the lower place of human conflict to the higher peace of the divine realm, fanning the flame of hope for their re-creation and ours.
God engineers our circumstances—how we respond to them will help bring our world together or allow the decay to continue. Jesus places no limits on His forgiving love but takes the mud and silt of our common humanity and transforms it by grace, resting all on the foundation stone of forgiveness. It has been said that forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that crushed it. Our courageous movement towards such compassion reflects in a finite way both the way God forgives us and the costliness of this infinitely precious gift.
Oh, Good Jesus,
in this holy place of crucifixion,
broaden the boundaries of my heart.
Soften the hard places that
defend, define and deny.
Teach my heart to love.
Make it a refuge for others
who, too, are caught
between the nails.
BWS3
You might also be interested in:
- 2 Corinthians 5:21
- Luke 23:34
- The Hidden Life Awakened p 26