There is an extraordinary true story about a woman called Corrie Ten Boom, a Protestant living in Holland during the Second World War. She lived with her sister and father and they used to read the bible every evening after dinner. During the war as Holland was occupied by the Nazis and Jewish people began disappearing, they ended up hiding people in their home, although they didn’t set out to do this. Eventually they were caught and sent to one of the Concentration camps in Germany called Ravensbruck. Her sister and father both died there, but she survived and was eventually released. When she returned home she began working to help the many people who were so hurt by the war. She felt that God was calling her to speak about the need for forgiveness and so she did. She was invited to speak all over the country and in other countries.
While speaking in Germany one day, a man came up to her after her talk and thanked her for this message of forgiveness. He said, ‘It is good to know that Jesus forgives all our sins.’ She recognised him as one of the SS officers who had been in charge of their prison. As he extended his hand to her, she found herself freezing up and unable to respond, but she realised that if she did not forgive this man who was responsible for the death of her sister and father, all her preaching would be meaningless. So she found herself praying to God on the spot asking him to help her to forgive and she was finally able to put out her hand to him. The book is called The Hiding Place and it is an amazing story. She wrote: ‘And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.’
Probably the greatest obstacle to God’s helping and healing us, is our refusal to forgive. When we refuse to forgive someone we shut the door to God’s grace, we prevent God from healing us, but there is an important thing to remember about forgiving someone. Many people think that in order to forgive someone I must feel like forgiving them. In other words, the hurt has to have gone and so now I can forgive. That is not how it works. Forgiveness is not just a question of how I feel, or whether I feel like forgiving someone or not. Most of us when we are hurt, are often hurt for a long time, sometimes for years, and of course we don’t feel like forgiving. The deeper the hurt the longer it takes to heal, but forgiveness is a decision of our will, it doesn’t depend on whether we physically feel like doing it or not. ‘Lord, I forgive this person because you ask me to. Please help me to heal.’ It doesn’t mean that all the hurt will instantly disappear, but if we are prepared to do this much, then we open the door to allow God’s Spirit to begin to heal us. If I refuse to forgive, I am preventing God’s Spirit from helping me to heal. We may think that by refusing to forgive someone we inflict some kind of revenge on the other person. The truth is that they may not even be aware of the hurt we carry. Refusing to forgive someone who has hurt us does not hurt them, it wounds us. The resentment becomes a poison within us, which festers. God wants to heal us and help us move on, but we must be willing to forgive. It is not an easy thing to do, but we must try. That is why Jesus spoke about it so many times in the Gospels and in very strong terms. If we expect to be forgiven, we must also be prepared to forgive and I doubt that there is anyone who does not need to forgive someone. If you find yourself angry at someone, it usually means that you need to forgive them. Maybe a good question to ask yourself when you find yourself angry with someone is this: if I was in their position, would I hope that the person I had hurt would forgive me?
For a few years I worked as a hospital chaplain and I met many old people, most of whom were at peace, having come through all the trials of their lives, but sometimes I would meet someone who was bitter and full of resentment, refusing to forgive. They had been hurt, but they refused to forgive and you could see how it had consumed them. It was a sad sight. It had destroyed them. People will hurt us, but we always have a choice to forgive them or not.
I am sure that all of us here expect that the Lord will forgive us. It’s what all the Gospels are about, it’s what we believe in and yet in no uncertain terms the Lord says, if you expect God to forgive you, you must be prepared to forgive others too. If you refuse to forgive others, then the heavenly Father will not forgive us either. That’s how it works. Forgiveness is a decision of our will that we must make. Once we do this, then we open the door to begin to heal.
When I choose to forgive someone, it doesn’t mean I am saying that the injustice no longer matters. The injustice may even be still going on. Choosing to forgive them is saying that I refuse to hate them, to resent them and to seek revenge on them.
If I refuse to forgive them, I am the one who is going to lose out. If I want to be healed and set free, then I must choose to forgive. Remember, choosing to forgive them is not about whether I feel like it or not. It is a conscious choice I make. I may need to say it another thousand times throughout my life. St. Paul writes, ‘Do not let resentment lead you into sin. The sunset must not go down on your anger. Do not give the devil his opportunity’ (Eph 4:26).
The devil is waiting for any and every chance to lead us to sin and separate us from God. Our anger is a key doorway for him to gain access. He will work on our anger and resentment, trying to convince us that it would not be right to forgive this person. They should suffer for what they have done. You should take revenge while you have the chance. Then there is justice. But Jesus said that Satan is the father of lies. He constantly lies to us to lead us away from God. He lied to Adam and Eve to get them to turn away from God. He continually lies to us too. This has also become part of the thinking of our society. We have become a vengeful society. We don’t just seek justice, we seek revenge and yet that is exactly what the Lord tells us not to do, because all it does is destroy us. Taking vengeance on someone does not bring peace. In fact it fuels anger.
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| Paris attacks, 2015 |
I want to share with you an extraordinary example of this kind of heroic virtue, where someone refuses to hate.
In 2015, on Friday, November 13, gunmen broke into a concert hall and shot 129 dead.
Antoine Leiris, a French journalist, posted the letter entitled, “You Will Not Have My Hatred,” to Facebook, less than three days after his 35-year-old wife of 12 years, Helen Muyal-Leiris, was shot dead. Muyal-Leiris was one of 129 individuals murdered during the series of attacks in Paris on Friday night, Nov 13, 2015.
Friday night, you took an exceptional life -- the love of my life, the mother of my son -- but you will not have my hatred. I don't know who you are and I don't want to know, you are dead souls. If this God, for whom you kill blindly, made us in his image, every bullet in the body of my wife would have been one more wound in His heart.
So, no, I will not grant you the gift of my hatred. You're asking for it, but responding to hatred with anger is falling victim to the same ignorance that has made you what you are. You want me to be scared, to view my countrymen with mistrust, to sacrifice my liberty for my security. You lost.
I saw her this morning. Finally, after nights and days of waiting. She was just as beautiful as when she left on Friday night, just as beautiful as when I fell hopelessly in love over 12 years ago. Of course I am devastated by this pain, I give you this little victory, but the pain will be short-lived. I know that she will be with us every day and that we will find ourselves again in this paradise of free love to which you have no access.
We are just two, my son and me, but we are stronger than all the armies in the world. I don't have any more time to devote to you, I have to join Melvil who is waking up from his nap. He is barely 17-months-old. He will eat his meals as usual, and then we are going to play as usual, and for his whole life this little boy will threaten you by being happy and free. Because no, you will not have his hatred either.
We have heard it several times here in the States too. Remember the young man who entered a prayer gathering in Charleston, North Carolina, in 2015 and shot almost everyone there. The following day their families came out and publicly said they forgave that young man. Extraordinary courage and strength. There is great goodness in most people.
When someone has hurt us, or hurt people we love, our reaction is usually one of anger and there is nothing wrong with feeling angry. It is a God-given emotion, like joy, or sorrow. It is what you do with that anger that is key. I have the choice to seek revenge, or justice. I also have the choice to forgive or not. We may not feel able to forgive initially, but the key to being set free of the hurt and the injustice, is to forgive. Where can we find the strength to do that? In God. The ability to love our enemies and forgive those who have wronged us, comes from God. The closer we come to God, the more that will be possible.
Think of this parable that Jesus spoke about the unforgiving servant. The servant had been completely forgiven a great debt, but he was unwilling to forgive. And Jesus finishes by saying, ‘This is how my heavenly Father will deal with you, unless you each forgive each other from your heart.’ Why should God forgive us, if we are not willing to forgive those who have wronged us?
‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.’
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