Monday, February 18, 2008

• Forgive and Forget

  Currently Listening Mockingbird By Derek Webb see related

  Forgive and forget. The phrase always resounds of bumper sticker Christianity to me. Like when my guitar gets played too much the sound of this phrase just never seems to hit my ears at the right pitch – one of the strings must be out of tune, or more likely broken.

   

  Sure, forgiveness is a perpetual necessity, but forgetting? Really? Is forgetting violence and sin perpetrated against me even feasible? Is it even morally justifiable to forget in a world where people take advantage of that forgetfulness?

   

  We acknowledge forgiveness as a chief Christian virtue. Despite this, few actually practice it. Indeed, it is not as though it is an easy virtue to practice – one must be harmed first. Nevertheless, Christ is clear that those who do not practice forgiveness will not be forgiven  (sorry, my fellow evangelicals, sola fide just doesn’t cut it here). This much is clear. But is forgetting clear? What does that even mean or look like?

   

  As long as I remember the violence one commits against me I will never be able to fully embrace and enjoy the other person as a creature created in God’s image. I will never be able to trust the other person fully to the extent that their violence against me resides in my mind. So long as this violence is ready and willing to spring to mind. That is, I leave them locked into the role, the violent role, they once played in my life.

   

  My paradigm for forgive and forget is, of course, God. No Sunday School answer here – God will surely wipe away all tears and remember our sins no more. We will be separated from our sins, our acts of violence, our self-focused perpetrations against God and others, as far as the east is from the west. Forgive and forget. Apparently God does.

   

  Or does He?

   

  If recalling a previous violence performed against me at the hands of a perpetrator is a sin of violence against them because it casts them into a mold they have been forgiven of and redeemed from, then this surely explains, on a divine level, why God also forgets our sins against Him. That is, God will not continue to remind us of our sin. He will not keep us in the role of once-disobedient children who, though they have been forgiven, need constant reminders of their former wickedness, thereby keeping them shackled to their old selves. Supposedly remnants of sin will be lost to divine forgetfulness. Supposedly.

   

  I wonder if God really can forget.  When someone has physically harmed me the scars and wounds will always be present. But once I have died, those scars will no longer be there – thereby giving me an even greater ability to forget the former violent action. This is also the case with psychological violence perpetrated against me. Though there may be a sense in which Auschwitz survivors will never fully mentally recover from their wounds, when they have passed on to the presence of God, they will be enabled to forget.

   

  Yet this is not so with Christ. Someone once told me that the only man-made things in heaven will be the scared hands and feet of Jesus. Indeed, when we look at the Gospel accounts this is true. Jesus tells Thomas to place his hands inside His scars. The fact that Thomas is able to, even with Jesus’ new resurrected, glorified body, says that these scars, unlike mine, will be permanent.

   

  The scars of Jesus will be a constant reminder of what redemption cost. The scars of Jesus will never let me forget what the casting away of my sin really took. And wouldn’t it be somewhat of a dishonoring of Christ’s sacrifice to forget such a thing? Wouldn’t it be a shame if we went through eternity having forgotten of our redemption – the most glorious act of love in history?

   

  Though we are told our sins will be remembered no more, I don’t know if divine omniscience or the scars of Jesus allows for such a thing. But if I do not accept that these things will be forgotten, then won’t I also be saying that part of God’s promises won’t come true? Will I not be saying the Bible contradicts itself in an important way?

   

  Just a thought for the day….a normal thought for a normal day.

   

   

   

   

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