If you’re like me, you tend to play a movie-reel in your head as you read the gospels. We can’t help it—living in the age of movies, we naturally allow our view of Jesus to be shaped by the various “Jesus movies” we’ve seen. One particular scene that I think we all view the same way happens at the crucifixion: after Jesus has been flogged, taken up to Calvary, and is now hanging on the cross, he looks up into heaven with a pained yet angelic look on his face, and says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”
And as he utters those words, in our mind’s eye we see the hardened Roman soldiers look up in amazement and shock; we also see the sinister chief priests look up in horror. That Jesus is showing us all up! You can’t be more macho than take a flogging, endure a crucifixion, and still say that! Take that you Romans! And as for you chief priests—he showed you! He’s asking forgiveness for you, and still we know you all are going to burn in hell! Ha ha! The theatrics of it all just play out in our mind, because in every Jesus movie, the director portrays this scene in the exact same way.
And since that’s the case, we tend to view it as “over there”—something to observe from a distance. We know who the good guy is (Jesus), we all know who the bad guys are (Romans soldiers and priests), and we all know they are going to be in a lot of trouble three days later. We already know the ending, so we tend to gloss over something is really important.
Jesus didn’t just forgive the people who wronged him. He forgave those people while he was still suffering the effects of their hatred and cruelty. He forgave them while he was suffering crucifixion. That astounds me.
Simply put, I know that I am a sinful man because I could never do that. I can understand forgiving someone who has hurt you after you’ve gone through the hurt and have come out the other side. But to forgive someone while you are still being nailed up…I’m sorry, I can’t do that.
It’s one thing to forgive someone for a variety of things: perhaps your boyfriend broke up with you; perhaps your best friend ditched you to do something else; perhaps you found out a co-worker was bad-mouthing you. Those things hurt, for sure. But if you have been the victim of outright cruelty, of someone who had irrevocably destroyed part of your life…that is an entirely different animal to deal with.
And that’s the dilemma. In our American brand of Christianity, we’re almost too polite. We intentionally gloss over about half of the Psalms—you know, the ones that pray that God will destroy our enemies, dash their children against the rocks. Those are just a bit to “angry” for our prim and proper version of Christianity. “No, you are to forgive. Don’t pray that person is dragged down to Sheol.”
Well, I don’t know about that. It’s something I wrestle with. You can’t ignore the pain; you can’t refuse to acknowledge that there is a lot of hatred in your heart over the injustice you’ve suffered. Honestly, there’s still a lot of hatred in my heart.
My conclusion is this: it is entirely okay to pray those angry Psalms. They’re angry because they want justice—they want wrongs to be righted and evil to be held to account. That’s part of what righteousness is about. So yes, there are some people in my life: “Lord, bring swift judgment on them and let destruction rain down! I will rejoice when they are brought to shame!” Absolutely…amen to that.
But at the same time, I have to realize that I’m not the one who is to bring that judgment; I’m not the one to seek revenge, for vengeance is the Lord’s. Instead, I need to forgive them.
That’s hard.
I’ll be honest—I’m not Jesus, and when I’m still in the middle of that suffering, forgiveness is something I can’t do. It’s not defiance; it’s just the truth. I’m not Jesus, I can’t forgive the people who’ve nailed me up while I’m still nailed up. I need some down time. I need a little bit of healing first. I trust God understands that.
I was just thinking about this the other day. I read somewhere that it’s okay to pray those Psalms because you’re still in the act of communicating to God. He needs to know how we feel, and we need to stay in communication with him, whether we tell him our troubles or praise him. I also read a long time ago a story about Corrie ten Boom when she was confronted with a former Nazi in the concentration camp she was in. He asked for forgiveness, and she still couldn’t forgive him, but she knew that God could forgive him through her, and that in time, she would be able to forgive him, so she said, “I forgive you,” having faith that God would help her to do so in the future. I think this would be the hardest type to forgive–someone who blatantly knows they’re setting you up for death, failure, ruin…etc.
I agree, Rebecca. It is easy to talk about forgiveness…but to forgive those who are actively plotting your ruin, yeah, that is really hard.
“In our American brand of Christianity, we’re almost too polite. We intentionally gloss over about half of the Psalms—you know, the ones that pray that God will destroy our enemies, dash their children against the rocks. Those are just a bit to ‘angry’ for our prim and proper version of Christianity. ‘No, you are to forgive. Don’t pray that person is dragged down to Sheol.'”
Oh, not all of us gloss over them… http://www.moscowid.net/2016/02/28/prayer-of-imprecation/
Yes, this site is by Douglas Wilson’s critics, but it links to his direct words.