Monday morning is always a time of second-guessing for me, reviewing my sermon ad nauseum and thinking about the things I should have said. Today is no exception.
I preached on forgiveness and yet didn't begin at the beginning in some ways. Where forgiveness and reconciliation have to begin is at the place where those things are actually desired outcomes. We have to begin by wanting to forgive and wanting forgiveness, if those attitudes aren't present then it makes no difference if the protocols are followed. The rabbis recognized this and thus set the standard that if someone confessed their sin against another three times and were rebuffed in their efforts to reconcile they were absolved of the need to continue to seek forgiveness.
Sometimes we aren't ready to take that step of forgiveness if the hurt is too deep, it takes time to come to a place of desiring to forgive the sin. We all likely have experience of such wounding, either those we have wounded or wounds we have received that took time to get to a place where forgiveness and reconciliation is possible. That experience makes all the more amazing Jesus' appeal from the cross after all He had suffered and was in the midst of suffering. How could He ask the Father to forgive in the midst of His pain? Before we decide it is out of our reach and chalk it up to Jesus' divine nature, listen to Stephen as he was being stoned, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."
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