As we approach the season of Lent and begin reaching toward Easter, we have the opportunity to consider many different lessons Jesus taught. In addition to the resurrection, I believe that forgiveness is perhaps the most powerful and greatest lesson of Easter.

But forgiveness also presents us with one of the hardest challenges to practice in our lives. We have a strong and large desire for fairness and justice, and often our quest for justice precludes forgiveness. We teach our children to be fair with others, and we seek fair treatment in all aspects of our lives.

Most of us don’t want to appear to be weak, or to be taken advantage of. When we have been wronged, we want amends to be made. We seek justice for ourselves, and usually we feel a need to have justice provided for others. Our basic shared humanity compels us to hope for fair treatment of all human beings.

Our Christian beliefs

Often our Christian beliefs heighten our sense of mindfulness about those who have been deprived of justice. We join together to try and use our collective energies to right wrongs, and bring justice to those who have been denied. Fairness and just practices provide a way to order in our lives. But forgiveness often runs counter to our quest for just solutions when human lives collide.

In the excellent new resource from Abingdon Press, “Living the Good Life Together: Forgiveness,” Methodist Bishop Peter Storey tells about South African churches coming together for a conference to help bring an end to the tyranny of apartheid. In this conference, some of those who had committed violent acts of racial hatred confessed their crimes.

Bishop Storey says there were “amazing acts of forgiveness that staggered us all.” He tells the very touching story of a white man who had murdered a young black activist. The murderer confesses his sin before the conference.

The mother of the murdered man is elderly and blind. She says, “I want to see the man who killed my son.”

She is led to him and very tenderly feels the contours of his face. “I have seen you. I know what you look like,” says the mother. “You need to know now that I am a Christian, and I forgive you.”

Not enough?

As if that is not enough, the mother then adds: “There is one thing that you are going to need to do for me. You have taken my son and now you must be my son.” The man faints.

“Forgiveness is a very painful thing to receive,” Bishop Storey says. “It is not something that you receive cheaply. The cost of forgiveness ultimately reverts back to a cross. It was the pain of taking into His heart, all of the brokenness, alienation, hurt and brutality, the horror of this world … He bore that within himself in order that forgiveness might be released into the world.”

I invite you to consider organizing a small group to consider the important topic of forgiveness. On this and the following page are excellent resources available in the Media Resource Center on forgiveness. Please call (847) 931-0710, ext. 17, or email sgieseler@umcnic.org, if you want to discuss these or resources on other subjects that the Media Center may be able to provide your congregation or organization.

And during Lent, I pray that you may know that you are loved, and that you are forgiven.