Forgiveness… Needed in a Nation

Dear Trekker,
On November 3, the day after that biennial event in our country known as “national elections”, our local newspaper editorial led off: “Red team vs. blue team, right team v. left team, my team v. your team. That is what American politics has become. Politicians elected Tuesday would best serve the public’s interests by setting aside party loyalty and fighting for liberty…” (italics mine).

In the same edition, a letter to the editor exclaimed: “This was the most negative, get-the-most-dirt-on-your-opponent campaign that in all my 65 years I have witnessed.” The writer went on to say, “This year’s ballot appeared to me as a multiple question quiz in which there was no correct answer.” No doubt your local paper carried similar letters and stories.

This year’s election has caused me to ponder. How do elected officials “best serve the public’s interests” and “fight for liberty”? Is it in reducing the deficit or continuing to spend lavishly and going deeper in national debt; is it in more or less government; is it in higher or lower tax rates? We all have strong feelings about these issues, do we not? Yet the answer goes deeper.

As I have reflected and prayed for our nation and our leaders, I realized something was being left out of the national debate. Put simply…how do we come together, be reconciled, be “one nation under God”, and work together as brothers, not enemies? Is that not what it means to be American… to lay individual differences aside for the common good?

The Spirit of God spoke to me a few days ago from the life of Jesus, the Christ, in his last moments on earth. As He was being crucified, the only perfect man to ever walk the face of the earth, He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Christ submitting to crucifixion was the greatest leadership act in history… asking God the Father to forgive those who crucified him because “they didn’t know what they were doing” is one of the greatest statements in history.

Forgiveness, what a word to conjure up the best and worst in men. Just think, trekker, an innocent man was humiliated and nailed to a cross, supposedly therefore erased from impact on history, and He, without rancor or judgment, asks His Father to forgive, “for they don’t know what they are doing.” Love, tempered civility, majesty in pain… this same Jesus was raised from the dead to see another day and use this despicable, dastardly conceived event to bless all mankind throughout human history…the climactic event of all time, God’s love story for His creation.

God in Christ has blessed men extravagantly. Man is to not only be pitied, he is to be forgiven and lifted up out of his self-imposed bondage… the bondage which results from turning our back on God and going our own way. Forgiveness is an extravagant act, but so freeing for forgiver and forgiven. We give God the glory when we forgive; we release others to start anew, and allow them to give God the glory, too.

Forgiveness cleans the slate of human error. We can start over. We can rebuild without rancor, recrimination or retribution. No leader in any day can truly lead without a spirit of forgiveness understood and extended. “Forgiveness is a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct to pay back evil for evil.” Pope John Paul II, 2002

Now a word of caution, trekker. If citizens and leaders are to be forgiven because “they do not know what they are doing”, does that mean we do not pray and work for the core beliefs of our forefathers? That we let bygones be bygones? NO! But the starting point for rebuilding our lives or the vibrant life of a floundering divided nation, is forgiveness. Forgiveness need not be requested. One of my favorite writers, the late Henry Nouwen, says it well: “It is freeing to become aware that we do not have to be victims of our past and can learn new ways of responding. Forgiveness is love practiced among people who love poorly. It sets us free without wanting anything in return.”

We as citizens of America (or citizens of any nation) are alienated from God and each other. This great American experiment is not possible to succeed over time unless we become rightly related to God “through His grace, mercy and forgiveness”. American exceptionalism includes a core belief that people, freed and forgiven of their individual and collective sin, can live in peace and harmony and govern themselves. “We the people”… but only a people forgiven and able to forgive each other can ever “pursue the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.”

I pray for a new birth of freedom, but a birth bathed in forgiveness. The process of national reconciliation and rebirth must be led by the people who are followers of Jesus Christ, because only in Him is true redemption. Jesus was embracing the whole world on the cross; Americans (as should all men) likewise must embrace the invitation, motivation and power to embrace each other. Leaders of character in this or any nation must refrain from exciting divisions and sowing seeds of hatred or class warfare. But it all starts with forgiveness.

Hear the Apostle Paul to his spiritual son Timothy: “I urge then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone… for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.” What a challenge, what a Thanksgiving prayer…that our nation still allows us to merge our citizenship in heaven with citizenship here on earth.

Trekker, let’s be forgivers. Forgiveness is the hallmark of liberation and new birth, for us and our nation.

Seeking to forgive as I have been forgiven,
Jim Meredith