Forgiveness

In last week’s article I argued that hell is truly our own choice, and that God’s love constantly reaches out to us, we need only to accept it. Yet this fact should not give us a false sense of ambivalence toward following the rules of morality. Rather, it enlightens us to the radical source of these rules, which is to point us toward fulfilling our life-long desires, answered in the embrace of God’s love. We should be terrified to lose out on this reward. What greater motivation do we need for living with charity, compassion and love?

The punishment for living a selfish life will not be a torture chamber designed by Satan within the allowance of God. The punishment will be an utter severance from Love. The fiery image of hell, however, does not even begin to describe such pain. It will be the complete and total absence of love, community, and the embracing companionship of another. And we will have built our own torture chamber through the selfishness of our sin.

Should we then fear God? By no means, for God wants so desperately to love us. God’s justice must be viewed in the context of his love. Love desires communion with the beloved and if our selfishness does not allow that, then it is just, that we are separated from God. We may fear that our sins are two great for God to forgive, but only if we are still living in the state of selfishness that causes that sin. If so, we are in a mortal state in a perilous separation from Love. But as soon as we turn to God with an open heart, the sin has already been forgiven. No sin is too great to be forgiven, but forgiveness cannot come to a heart which is not penitent. Once that heart is ready to accept forgiveness, which takes humility, for it requires a turning away from self, God comes to us like the Father to the Prodigal Son, seeing him on the road “while he was still far off. The Father ran and put his arms around him and kissed him,” and did not even wait to hear his confession before he had been forgiven. (Luke 15:20)

During Jesus’ life on earth, he did not seek companionship with the sinless, but with those who opened themselves up most to his love, often by seeking his forgiveness. When dining at the house of righteous men, a sinful woman came in, washed his feet with perfume and dried them with her hair. (Luke 7:36-50) This gesture of love touched him more than any boast of righteousness the Pharisees in the house could make. Despite her sinful life, by coming to him, by offering herself to Love’s forgiveness, she is redeemed. Whatever good we may do, we always need forgiveness, and we always need Love. Sometimes it is the most sinful who recognizes most their need for forgiveness, while those who can take some pride for the good they have done, fail to offer themselves completely to Love’s reconciliation.

Nor did Jesus go out and seek the sick that he might heal them. Rather, they sought him because they believed in the healing power of his love. When healing, Jesus always linked not only faith, but forgiveness as the healing power, saying “Your faith has healed you,” and “Your sins are forgiven.” Even with the sick, it takes a turning away from self and pride to seek the healing power of forgiveness.

Within Love there is no pride. Pride only exists in selfishness. Our sense of justice would feel compromised by running out to meet such a prodigal, when we had been wronged so much. This was the reaction of the older son in the parable, but not the father. We have wronged God in the same way, and even in our sorrow we feel we should be made to suffer for what we have done. But Love is not interested in making us suffer. Love is interested in bringing us back. Love has no pride to remember the wrong done. Love has only desire for reconciliation.
We sometimes view forgiveness as a sentence lifted, as if we were found guilty in the court-room, but the judge mercifully suspended the sentence. But the only punishment comes when we remain in our sin. God forgives because his love is complete, and as soon as we turn from selfishness to live in love, we are living in God. (I John 4:16) This is not to make light of our wrongs, which grieve God and hurt ourselves, but to point out that love surpasses all sin. We simply need to accept it. St. Augustine says, God forgives, “not as though he found nothing to punish, but because he found something to forgive.” (Sermon LXIV, 4)

God is heartbroken by our plight. He wants nothing more than to reach out and bring us back into communion with him through forgiveness, but we must allow him to come near us. First we must turn away from sin, for Love cannot be in communion with sin.

Revisiting the tale of the Prodigal Son, when the son had gone out into the world of his sin, the father could not come to him. If he had seen the father following him away from the house he would have traveled faster. If he had seen the father coming after him in the towns of his debauchery, he would have been angry and embarrassed. Even if the father had come to him as he fed the swine as a slave, he would have hidden from him in shame. The father’s heart was never unwilling to forgive. He sat at home longing for the son’s return. But only when the son came back, reaching out for the love he had severed, could the father’s dream of forgiveness come true.

In the same way, Jesus could not give his love and forgiveness to those who did not open themselves up to hear his message. That was why, if it was the sinners who came to him for the gift of love, he gave it freely, but the rich, the proud and the arrogant would not accept his love. He refused his love to no one. He even entered into communion with the Pharisees, when they sought him, as did Simon (Luke 7) and Nicodemus (John 3). The point was that first the sinners, of which we can all count ourselves, had to lay down their pride and offer themselves to the gift of Love.

God longs for our reconciliation, but cannot order us back. We must turn first to him, and then he will come running toward us to embrace us on the road when we are still far off, for we were dead and have come to life; we were lost and have been found! (Luke 15:32)