Friday, June 23, 2017

Forgiveness Is Freedom

    I recently picked up a subscription to a journal called Plough Quarterly, published by the Bruderhof community.  I'd heard good things about it, and the journal recently co-sponsored an excellent forum with another journal I greatly respect.  I thought it could do no harm to check it out--and I haven't been disappointed.  The Spring 2017 edition featured many stories of personal courage on the part of Christ's followers.  One of them was most affecting and challenging.  The story of Steven McDonald is all about the courage to forgive.  

   A former New York City police officer, Mr. McDonald walked up to three teenagers in Central Park in the summer of 1986.  He wanted to ask them for any information surrounding a bicycle theft.  A fifteen-year-old boy drew a gun and shot Officer McDonald in the head, neck and arm.  The officer was rushed to the hospital, where his life was saved, but there was bad news: he would be paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life.  His wife, who was three months pregnant with their child, was devastated.  Mrs. McDonald was, however, a devout believer, and expressed confidence that this tragedy would be a chance for God to display how faithfully He can provide for His children's every need.  The constancy of her faith gave Steven McDonald the strength to forgive the young man who shot him.  As he set the boy free from condemnation, he discovered it was he who'd experienced a much greater liberation.

     We have often heard it said that when we harbor grudges against those who have wronged them, it is we who suffer.  Those who committed wrongs (or we imagine they've wronged us) do not experience the poisoning effect of the bile we build up inside while we condemn them.  The only way for the offended party to be truly free of the injury is to let it go.

     The Amish community of Nickel Mines, Lancaster County, understood this when their fellowship was most grievously wounded in October of 2006.  A seriously-disturbed man, Charles Roberts, entered the community's one-room schoolhouse, barricaded himself inside with the children, and began shooting the little girls in the back of the head.  He killed five and wounded five more--one of them seriously handicapped as a result--before taking his own life.  

   We can only guess at the pain suffered by this simple community of non-violent Christians.  We might expect them to harbor bitterness over this unprovoked, heinous act, or at least to draw in on themselves to nurse their wounds and protect themselves against further harm from "the English."  

   Their response was the opposite.  Within hours of the terrible act, the Old Order community presented themselves at the doorsteps of the murderer's family.  They folded his wife and three young children into their families, and set up a charitable fund to help the widowed mother to raise her children.  The grieving wife thanked them publicly, 

"Your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need. Gifts you've given have touched our hearts in a way no words can describe. Your compassion has reached beyond our family, beyond our community, and is changing our world, and for this we sincerely thank you." (Damien McElroy, Daily Telegraph, London, 10/17/06)  

   The forgiveness and love of the Amish community set this family free from shame, and that freedom gave them the chance to heal.
     Of course, in forgiving, the Amish were also setting themselves free--free to experience the love and healing of God, and free to love and heal each other.  It is all-too-common for a victimized family to disintegrate under the burden of all their pain.  Bereavement can cripple emotionally and relationally, as well as physically.  It is bewildering to watch family members in pain wound each other, lashing out at the very ones who can most help them to heal.  If only they could forgive those who wounded them, and hold tight to each other, they could emerge with stronger bonds than before.  They could then share their story with other families in pain, and the liberating power of forgiveness would change the world.

     This was the experience of Officer Steven McDonald.  When he chose to forgive, it was first a means to protect his family and his soul.  He said of the decision,

I wanted to free myself of all the negative, destructive emotions that this act of violence awoke in me--the anger, the bitterness, the hatred.  I needed to free myself of those so I could be free to love my wife and our child and those around us. I often tell people that the only thing worse than a bullet in my spine would have been to nurture revenge in my heart.  Such an attitude would have extended my tragic injury into my soul, hurting my wife, son, and others even more.  It is bad enough that the physical effects are permanent, but at least I can choose to prevent spiritual injury. (Sam Hine, "God's Cop--A Tribute to Steven McDonald: Friend, Hero, Saint," Plough Quarterly, Spring 2017, No. 12, p. 13)

     Forgiveness, when unleashed, has a power which cannot be contained.  Though at first he just wanted to protect his marriage,  his family , and his soul, the freedom he experienced had to be shared.  Bound to a wheelchair, and continually hooked up to a ventilator, Mr. McDonald began to travel extensively with a message of what forgiveness can do.  He traveled to Northern Ireland, in the first days of an uneasy peace, and spoke to both Protestant and Catholic churches, even to the Northern Irish Parliament.  He told them that the only way to achieve true peace, and a harmonious future, was forgiveness on both sides of the divide.  He has traveled to Israel, where he counseled forgiveness to both Israelis and Palentinians.  In the wake of the 1999 Columbine school shooting, he co-founded a program called Breaking the Cycle, which gave McDonald the opportunity to talk to thousands of New York school students about the power of resolving conflicts non-violently.  World leaders, celebrities, and multitudes of normal people like us have had their lives changed by his story of the courage to forgive,  and the freedom it brings.

     All of this was done in a wheelchair.  Every breath he took to speak of forgiveness was supplied by a machine.  Officer McDonald forgave even as he suffered.

     The Amish community in Lancaster County forgave a family, and adopted them as their own, even as they grieved their lost, little girls terribly.

     Forgiveness is at its greatest, most world-altering power when offered out of pain.  Just ask Jesus.

"When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals--—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”" -- Luke 23:33-34 NIV

     Has someone hurt you badly?  Do you still wince at the betrayal of a trusted friend? Has a hurtful word pierced your heart from a source you would never have expected?  Are you smarting from the grief of a relationship ended all too soon?  Pain is far too common in this world.  We all have it, in one form or another.  The only thing we can do is choose what to do with it.  

   We can nurse our bitterness, holding our grudges as long as we live.  If we choose this path, we will have the luxury of righteous anger.  What we will not have is freedom, or love.  Bitterness will keep us from loving or being loved.  

   Unforgiveness will make it impossible to know God at all.  We will never be able to receive His gift of forgiveness, so long as we clutch the gift of bitterness that we have made for ourselves.

     If we choose, however, to forgive the hurt and release the pain, we will be free to love, and to be loved.


     And if we let God wield the power of forgiveness through us, we will change the world.  That is not an exaggeration.

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