How to Forgive

When they arrived at the place called The Skull, they crucified Him there, along with the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing." And they divided His clothes and cast lots (HCSB, Luke 23:33-34).

Mark Twain once said that "forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it." Given his various critiques of the Christian faith, I doubt that Mark Twain willingly would have chosen to recognize the deep theological significance of his words; and if he did, he surely would have thought his rendering more poetic and deeply theological than the Christian truth. Nevertheless, what Twain iterates so succinctly and beautifully is that which Christ demonstrates via his crucifixion: that "in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them" (HCSB, 2 Corinthians 5:19).

For what is it that the violet can do when crushed? It can do nothing but impart its fragrance upon the foot that destroys its beauty and ends its life. Similarly, when Christ suffered crucifixion, God did nothing but offer reconciliation to the world through Christ's death. Rather than count their crimes against them, God offered the world forgiveness. Forgiveness is the blood Christ sheds on the sinners who have killed him.

But let us not stop with Christ's forgiveness. As Christ told his disciples: "For if you forgive people their wrongdoing, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. But if you don't forgive people, your Father will not forgive your wrongdoing" (HCSB, Matthew, 6:14-15). While one can easily take this teaching to mean "forgive or else," one instead could take it to mean, in light of our commentary thus far, that we should at all times live life as does the violet: always vulnerable, never able to seek revenge, but only capable of benefiting those who wrong us, even though we will be worse off for it. Indeed, while perhaps forgiveness now may benefit us later, for now forgiveness will gain us nothing. What good did Christ's suffering grant him while he was still on the cross? What good does a heel grant the hapless violet? Those who forgive seek not their own well-being, but the well-being of the ones who have hurt them most. We are to be a people who forgive. As Paul reminded the Christians living in Corinth: "Everything is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation" (HCSB, 2 Corinthians 5:18).

The Kingdom of God is like a field of violets trampled by the heels of the masses---though they are crushed underfoot, they shed a beautiful fragrance upon their transgressors, and the aroma cannot but reach the nose of God who smells and is pleased by the perfume.