18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,d not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. [1]
“Pastor, why does there have to be a ‘blood sacrifice’? I’ve never understood how the shedding of one’s blood, could atone for another’s sin. So we’ve sinned against God. What good does sacrificing a sheep or a bull do?” More to the point, was Jesus’ death necessary for our forgiveness, or could there be something else going on here?
Can forgiveness be freely offered? Or must there be some objective act of satisfaction in order to open up the possibility of forgiveness?I continue to focus my thoughts and reflections around the concept of intimacy with God and one another as the final objective of Christ’s ministry of reconciliation. I must confess that the only way I can make sense of our relationship with God is to compare and understand how our relationships with one another work.
Last month my wife and I celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary. There are a lot of things that go into a marriage that lasts 34 years, or a life-time for that matter. Obviously, a great deal of love freely given and gratefully received is a wonderful place to start. Another equally obvious thing is that for relationships to last and to grow in intimacy over the years there will need to be a willingness and capacity to forgive. To put it differently, if you are going to insist on keeping score, there is going to be hell to pay down the road.
In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,d not counting their trespasses against them.
The basis for intimacy, forgiveness, and reconciliation is in not keeping score. It is not about retaining meticulous records of all the wrongs done and demanding some action to correct the wrong or compensate (make satisfaction for) the wrong done.
One of the things I learned about myself in the years past is that part of my psychological profile is distinctively “shame based”. One dimension of that shame based profile is “to never bury the hatchet”, or more specifically, never forget a wrong as the day may come when you may need the ammunition. This became particularly clear when I reflected on memories of hurts that I was preserving from the earliest days of my life and of my marriage. Such a memory is an act of score keeping. And as long as we continue to keep score, as long as the days of our lives are counted in terms of merits and demerits, forgiveness is not possible.
Now if I was totally honest, I’d probably confess that within our marriage I have a lot more to be forgiven for, than I have to forgive. But again, that is just another way of score keeping. Would forgiveness be served if at the end of the day, my wife and I could look at each other and say, “OK, you have done this and I that, we’re even. Let’s call it good.” Or more to the point, if I were unfaithful to my wife, is there anything that I could do, any price that I could pay, that would merit her forgiveness and justify it? Going back to the original question posed by my parishioner, if I sacrificed our family pet would that atone for my sins? What about a child? Does blood have to be shed in order for sin to be forgiven?
In my example, if forgiveness were possible in that situation, it would only be possible as a free gift of grace, offered unconditionally because of the love that defines the relationship. It would be a conscious choice on one person’s part of “not counting (the other’s) trespasses against them.”
This I believe is the reconciling work of God in Christ Jesus. It is about not counting trespasses. It is about the Son declaring from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” It is about God loving us unconditionally, in spite of ourselves.
There is an old adage that “Love is blind.” Loving intimacy is not blind, it just doesn’t keep score.
