Forgiveness, Part 2

The invitation we talked about yesterday to participate in absorption rather than perpetuation is at the heart of all Christian understanding of forgiveness, not just as it relates to issues of family.

The world is full of brokenness. We were designed to live in a universe or 'operating system' that was brokenness-free. In other words, sin is alien to the design of our souls.

Jesus comes and he takes on that sin so that we might once again live as we were meant to. This is why the Scriptures are emphatic that he is the hope of the whole world, not just Jews or those who find him helpful in a therapeutic sort of way. His medicine is the medicine we all need: the absorption of sin, our own and the sin that has done damage to us.

This does not mean, of course, that people who are not Christians cannot forgive. Based on temperament and other factors we all have varying abilities and capacities for forgiveness.

But what Christ offers us is two-fold.

One, he has already shown that he has infinite capacity for the absorption of sin, both ours and that which has been done to us.

In other words, apart from Christ we are stuck with our own limited capacity to forgive. Eventually, no matter our temperament, we all become saturated. We have a limited capacity to forgive others, some of us have an even more limited capacity to forgive ourselves. That's when bitterness sets in.

Jesus has an infinite capacity for forgiveness. And he invites us to allow him to work in us to exercise that capacity. Even as it relates to the things that have hurt us the most. Even in the midst of our own self-hatred that results in voices of guilt and shame.

Infinite capacity to absorb sin. It has actually already happened.

Secondly, what Jesus has done once and for all is broken the power of sin. Absorption language is helpful but not complete; it's passive. Jesus absorbs our sin. But he also breaks the power of that sin and frees us to move in a positive, opposite direction.

This power means, as one example, that we are not bound to repeat cycles of family brokenness. Jesus has absorbed that sin and overcome it, it has not overcome him. He lives in us and we live in him.

This means that our baggage or anger or sin or victim-status no longer has to define who we are, how we parent, how we drive, how we relate to our parents or siblings or co-workers or friends. Jesus' victory gets to do that. Forgiveness gets to do that.

Here's the good news: brokenness and sin does not have the last word on us. Jesus can and does. We have been told the story of all sin and death and guilt and broken patterns overcome and the good news is this: hope wins.