Emotions scream a chorus of pain in our minds and hearts. These honest groanings threaten to hold us frozen in grief and enslaved to a lack of forgiveness. Maybe you find yourself in this place today.
Building a case for the importance of forgiveness has been done many times, and it includes a need to be free. When we don’t forgive, we tether our soul to the source of our pain, causing us to relive the pain at the most inopportune moments. The call of Christ to forgive with our hearts as detailed in Matthew 18:21-35 tells us that the infinite forgiveness from God must be received so that we can pass it along infinitely. Doing so testifies to our own forgiveness and sets us free. But how do we do it? How do we walk out forgiveness when it’s so difficult?
Christ shows us how to walk out forgiveness, and we can see it in the passage above (Matthew 26:36-54). Here are the steps that we can take:
STEP ONE: Be honest with those around you, and be choosy.
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go over there and pray.” And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. (vv.36-37)
Notice that Jesus was with the disciples, but He waited until He was alone with His closest friends to show His emotions. Forgiveness is not pretending like everything is okay. We must allow ourselves feel the appropriate emotions in the proper context and with the appropriate people. For Jesus, those emotions were feeling sorrowful and troubled, His proper context was away from the crowds and even away from some of His friends, and His appropriate people were Peter, James, and John.
Jesus was very honest with His feelings saying, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me. These were not the words of someone trying to lie their way into forgiveness by attempting to convince themselves that they are “blessed and highly favored” or “too blessed to stress.” Jesus was honest with others about His feelings, and He was choosing about who He shared them with.
It’s important to note what Jesus did not do as well. Jesus did not broadcast His pain to everyone He met, nor did He tell everyone He called friend. Jesus also did not stay in this place of honestly sharing His hurt. He moved to Step Two. We often get in trouble or get stuck in our forgiveness path when we attempt to make sharing our story with everyone we meet a tool for revenge, a salve to our hurt, or a cry for affirmation. This becomes an unfulfilling and non-healing cycle that leaves us stuck in Step One, thus never getting to Step Two or the freedom that the Lord has for us through forgiveness.
STEP TWO: Get alone.
…remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face… (v. 38b)
After being honest about how He was feeling with His close friends, Jesus went off alone. In our society of perpetual business and connection via social media, meetings, hangouts, etc, getting alone can be difficult and it can be frightening. Getting alone takes effort and intentionality, but it also eliminates the noise that hides our hurt. How may times have you entered into Step One of the path to forgiveness, perhaps walked in it, and then picked up a device, activity, substance (even food), or conversation to avoid facing the issues of your soul?
This step requires a bravery that must press through the pressures of our society AND the fears in our soul. Sometimes we can hide from this step in the comfort of friends. Like Jesus, we can keep them nearby, but there is business to be done with God.
STEP THREE: Be honest with God.
My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me… (.v 39a)
Jesus repeated these words three times to God the Father. Three times Jesus said in effect, “Father, I have to be honest: I really don’t want to do this.” These were not casual words spoken by an unfeeling man. The account given by Luke in Luke 22:44 tells us, And being in agony He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
I cannot think of a single time in life that I have prayed with so much pain and passion that sweat poured from my body like blood. That’s intense. That’s honest. It wasn’t an honesty in word only, but it was an honesty that showed God how He felt. If we are to forgive, if we are to move ahead in the path toward forgiveness, we must be honest with God with our whole selves. Jesus was.
STEP FOUR: Relinquish your will to God’s will.
nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will (v. 39b)
Jesus prayed these words immediately following His honesty with God each of the three times He prayed. For many, this is the most difficult of all of the difficult steps to forgiveness. This step requires us to lay down our own will for God’s will. This is the call to every believer everywhere every day, but in times when there is a wrong done and pain hits us, this can be difficult. It can be difficult for many reasons. Maybe it’s difficult because we want revenge. Maybe it’s difficult because we want an easier path than the path of forgiveness. Maybe we don’t want to submit to God’s will because we don’t trust that He has good for us.
No matter how difficult these times can be, Jesus models this level of submission to us. It was so hard for Him, it led Him to the next step.
STEP FIVE: Receive help.
And there appeared to Him an angel from heaven, strengthening Him (22:43)
Returning to the account in Luke 22, we see that Jesus had help in the path toward forgiveness. It’s important to note that the angel didn’t come and walk the path of forgiveness for Him. The angel didn’t give Him a “skip to the end” card. The angel didn’t even offer Him revenge on His behalf. The angel gave Jesus the strength that He needed to continue on the path toward forgiveness.
It may be that you need a messenger (angel) from heaven in the form of a pastor, counselor, or mentor to encourage you with strength along the way. They cannot do the work for you, but they can give you the strength to continue.
STEP SIX: Recognize the real enemy.
And he came up to Jesus at once and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” And he kissed him. Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you came to do.” Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. (vv. 49-50)
Here we see Judas betraying Jesus. In this moment of betrayal, it would be easy for me (if I were in Jesus’ place) to see Judas as my enemy. My words would be few and choice. Jesus had few words for Jesus, but His choice of words included the word “friend.” How is this possible?
The accounts of interactions between Jesus and Judas throughout the Gospels do not appear to show Jesus absolving Judas of responsibility for his betrayal; indeed, Jesus’ command, “do what you came to do” implies that Judas is an active, willful part in the plot of satan to kill Jesus. Though Jesus understands that Judas is partnering with satan, Jesus can call Judas friend because Jesus knows who His real enemy is: satan. While this passage does not explicitly make this differentiation, it does show Jesus calling a betrayer friend, and we see elsewhere that Jesus recognizes the potential for friends to partner with the enemy of humanity, satan (see e.g., Matthew 16:23).
Detaching the title “enemy” from the one that hurt us does not absolve them of guilt, but it does help us to recognize the reality of the directions that our anger and hurt can be pointed. Could it be that we desire to unleash a revenge/justice on another human that God has reserved for satan?
STEP SEVEN: Choose His justice over your own.
Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” (vv. 53-54).
These words follow the violent actions of one of his disciples. This attempt to protect Jesus or punish His capturers is met with a rebuke from Jesus. Jesus explains that He prefers the plan of justice of God over justice in the moment.
When we are wrongfully treated and hurt (someone sins and it painfully impacts our world), our soul may respond with a desire to see justice happen right away. In fact, it might take us a minute, but it doesn’t take long to decide what that justice should look like. As in the case of Jesus, there was a greater justice at work, and it didn’t look like justice for Jesus in that moment, but it included justice for all mankind. The only way that God’s level of justice could occur was for Jesus to lay down His own right and ability to see justice in the present.
STEP EIGHT: Embrace the place of forgiveness.
And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34a)
From the moment of betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane to these powerful and shaking words of Jesus, much transpired that involved humanity wronging the blameless, spotless Lamb of God. His words of forgiveness in this verse did not just account for those moments and actions of sin against Him on His way to the cross, but they included the entire sins of the world (John 1:29).
This moment models the place of forgiveness for us all: in the middle of our pain.
It would have been easier to forgive humanity after He rose again. I can imagine the ease with which the newly resurrected Jesus could say with a happy laugh, “you’re all forgiven!!” I can also imagine that the words of forgiveness might have been easier before any of the pain begun. Words of forgiveness in the middle of our pain have meaning.
It would be nice if we could choose forgive when the pain has ended. It might be easy to say that we forgive someone before anything has actually happened (this would be ridiculous and meaningless). Neither of these options work, however. If we think that forgiveness is a feeling of relief, joy, or ecstasy, we will never forgive because these feelings don’t exist in the place where true forgiveness can happen: pain. Forgiveness isn’t a feeling. It’s a choice.
STEP NINE: Recognize reconciliation.
And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” (Luke 23:35)
This scoffing comes in the verse directly after Jesus’ words of forgiveness. The people did not hear His moment of forgiveness and suddenly recognize their sinfulness and repent. He didn’t immediately say, “okay everyone! You’re good!”
No, Jesus forgave the world and then gave them boundaries for entering into relationship with Him. For Jesus and us, the boundaries are to believe in Him:
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Romans 10:9
He doesn’t want any to perish, but Jesus does not equate forgiveness with reconciliation.
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
2 Peter 3:9
Jesus’ part was to forgive; our part is to repent. This action and reaction unlocks the door to reconciliation.
God wants us all to forgive. When we are injured by unsafe people, and we wrongly think that forgiveness and reconciliation are synonymous, we will resist the path to forgiveness. This fatal error will rob us of the freedom that forgiveness brings. Conversely, if we believe that forgiveness equates to reconciliation, we may allow others to force us to live without healthy boundaries and enter back into unsafe environments all while thinking that we are “doing the Godly thing and forgiving.”
This question remains: how do we forgive someone who (like much of humanity toward Jesus) isn’t repentant for their sin?
A friend once said to me, “often we think we have problem with forgiveness, but we don’t. What we have is a problem grieving. Like in the example of Jesus above, we must grieve before we can forgive. Grief appears in our lives as a cycle of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression (“cycle” implies you can go around and around this pattern).* When we find ourselves in a position of needing to forgive an unrepentant person, we have before us one more wrong that we need to forgive.
What exactly is forgiveness? Forgiveness is demonstrated by Jesus. Forgiveness says, “I will deal with the consequences of your sin, but I choose no to hold it against you.” Jesus dealt with the consequences of our sin, and though there is a clear path to reconciliation, He does not hold it against us in our account. We may say, “that’s not fair! I don’t want to deal with the consequences of their sin!” Unfortunately, that feeling you have inside tells you that you already are dealing with the consequences of their sin, and as a friend and a pastor, I’m so sorry.
The choice does not lie in the place of consequences; the choice is whether we will release them to God or not.
Releasing from our heart may take some time. If someone hits me in the eye. I have to release them for hurting me and giving me a black eye. To be free, I cannot stop there. I need to take account. I need to grieve. I need to realize that I also need to forgive them of the time it took to ice my eye, the embarrassment I endured of explaining what had happened to me, and more. I call it the “ripple effect.” Following the path of Jesus to forgiveness helps us account for all of these things.
In each of the steps of grief, like the steps of forgiveness, we can get stuck. Each step is important. Let the Holy Spirit strengthen you to move forward and take a step.
Today, take a step. Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to begin the path of forgiveness. Perhaps today God invites you to take the next step in the path to forgiveness. Maybe today He would have you forgive.
Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.
Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a water break… we all get thirsty.
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