"Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times." ~Matthew 18:21-22
Forgiveness is one of the most difficult and yet most central aspects of the Christian faith. There are many stages of forgiveness: forbearance, truth-telling, empathy and justice. Like stages of grief these are not chapters that one simply passes through but instead is more often messy and difficult. Perhaps the most difficult is empathy – to be able to see the situation from the other’s perspective. Jesus is constantly calling us to see beyond ourselves: to see the wholeness in the broken, the faith in the radical, the power in the powerless.
Forgiveness is one of the most difficult and yet most central aspects of the Christian faith. There are many stages of forgiveness: forbearance, truth-telling, empathy and justice. Like stages of grief these are not chapters that one simply passes through but instead is more often messy and difficult. Perhaps the most difficult is empathy – to be able to see the situation from the other’s perspective. Jesus is constantly calling us to see beyond ourselves: to see the wholeness in the broken, the faith in the radical, the power in the powerless.
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