But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. …. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. [Luke 6:27-28,36 (ESV)]
When writing about forgiveness these last few days, I wondered why we find it so difficult to forgive. Perhaps it’s because, in our troubled hearts, we want to even the score before doing so. Wanting to retaliate in some way, bitterness and resentment grow and eat at us until we can extract our pound of flesh.
For one woman, the opportunity for retaliation didn’t arise until her father died and she wrote his blistering obituary. Contemptuous of the man, she said he lived “29 years longer than expected and much longer than he deserved!” and called him a “horse’s ass!” After naming his “relieved children,” she said he left behind ”countless other victims including an ex-wife, relatives, friends, neighbors, doctors, nurses and random strangers.” Calling the man, “a model example of bad parenting combined with…a complete commitment to drinking, drugs, womanizing and being generally offensive,” she added that he joined the Navy as part of a plea deal to avoid criminal charges. Along with being described as reckless, wasteful, and having no redeeming qualities, he was accused of abusing his family, squandering their money, and being cruel to animals.
Explaining “there will be no prayers for eternal peace and no apologizes to the family he tortured,” she added that the man’s cremains would be kept in the barn until the “donkey’s wood shavings run out.” The obituary closed with the words that his passing “proves that evil does in fact die and hopefully marks a time of healing and safety for all.” The angry words in this scathing obituary were the family’s way of extracting their pound of flesh from the man.
Reading those words saddened me when I read them in 2017 and they continue to trouble me today. Perhaps the man’s family found the spiteful obituary cathartic, but publicly cataloguing the dead man’s wrongs accomplished nothing. Even though their contemptuous words remain on the funeral home’s website today, the man they hated will never read them! I suspect the sweet taste of revenge his family may have felt when the obituary was posted left them with a bitter aftertaste.
When harmed, it’s natural to want payback. Natural, however, isn’t necessarily right and justice and vengeance are God’s department and His alone. Rather than meeting evil with more evil, Jesus tells us we are to meet evil with grace and to do all we can to live in peace with everyone. As Christ’s followers, we are expected to extend grace and forgiveness.
I can only pray that this man’s passing has provided healing for those whose lives he touched. That healing, however, won’t come until they finally forgive him and let go of the past. Like their anger, forgiveness can’t change their past but, unlike anger, forgiveness can change their future! Unlike the bitter aftertaste of anger and revenge, forgiveness always tastes sweet!
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. [Lewis B. Smedes]
If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” [Romans 12:18-20 (ESV)]
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When writing about issumagijoujungnainermik, the Inuit word for forgiveness, I came across a word in the Tshiluba language spoken by the Bantu of the Congo: ilunga. Because isumagijoujungnainermik is made up of several Inuit words, it easily translates as “not-being-able-to-think-about-it-anymore.” Like issumagijoujungnainermik, ilunga has to do with forgiveness but, unlike the Inuit word, it resists an easy translation. In fact, back in 2004, 1,000 linguists gave it the questionable honor of being the world’s “most difficult” word to translate!
When Moravian missionaries first arrived in the Arctic, they found no single word in the Inuktitut language for forgiveness. That doesn’t mean the Inuit people didn’t let go of past wrongs, just that they didn’t have a single world for doing so. Since forgiveness is an essential concept in Christianity, the missionaries wanted a single word that captured the kind of forgiveness found in Psalm 103. Using Inuktitut words, they came up issumagijoujungnainermik meaning “not-being-able-to-think-about-it-anymore.” This 24-letter multi-syllable word beautifully describes the God who will “cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” [Micah 7:19], who vows to “forgive their iniquity, and…remember their sin no more,” [Jeremiah 31:34], and who promises to blot out our transgressions and not remember our sins.[Isaiah 43:25]
Following Jesus’ resurrection, the Apostles met regularly at the Temple where they boldly preached and healed the sick. Alarmed at this turn of events, the high priest and his officials had the men put in jail. That night, an angel freed them and told the men to return to the Temple and speak to the people there.
In 1 Kings 21, we learn of Naboth, the owner of a vineyard adjacent to King Ahab’s palace in Jezreel. A choice piece of real estate, Ahab wanted it for himself and offered to purchase or exchange it for other land. Property, however, wasn’t to be treated as a real estate investment—it was to remain in the family to which it had been allotted. Because Jewish law prohibited Naboth from selling his ancestral land, he rejected the king’s offer. Angry at his neighbor’s refusal’s, Ahab acted like a spoiled child, took to his bed, and refused to eat. Upon learning the reason for her husband’s sulking, Jezebel hatched a devious plan. She arranged for false accusations to be made against Naboth that would result in his immediate death. Jezebel’s evil plot went as planned and, upon news of their neighbor’s death, she told Ahab the land was his and he took it for himself!
With few exceptions, when we find mention of pride in Scripture, it has a negative connotation. It refers to arrogance, conceit, disrespect, haughtiness, and effrontery. Often called stubborn, insolent, willful, and selfish, prideful people don’t fare well in Scripture. Consider Pharaoh whose pride made him stubbornly defy the power of God; as a result, his entire nation suffered plague after plague, he lost his eldest son, and his entire army was decimated. Lucifer’s insolence and pride got him evicted from heaven. Nebuchadnezzar’s conceitful boasting resulted in the king living as a field animal and eating grass for seven years! When arrogant King Uzziah overstepped boundaries and burned incense in Temple (something only priests could do), the proud king became an outcast leper. Indeed, “pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” [Proverbs 16:18]
Devotions of the Heart 