04-25-24

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
April 25, 2024
I have been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately, specifically reflecting on the back and forth between Peter and Jesus found in Matthew 18:21-22,

“Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.’”

Peter lived in a world where things were defined based on their limits. For Peter, he understood forgiveness by giving it a structure—a beginning and ending. There was a place where forgiveness started and a place where forgiveness concluded, and I believe his question to Jesus, “As many as seven times?” was a rather liberal and expansive understanding of forgiveness in his mind. I can almost hear him saying it with pride and expecting Jesus to praise him. The response of Jesus, “seventy-seven times,” or it could be translated as “seventy times seven,” is the merger of perfection. The number seven symbolized perfection, completeness, or could be understood as representing God. Forgiveness, in Jesus’ response, was seeking to remove the measurements by which Peter and others attempted to define forgiveness. Instead, Jesus provided a picture of God’s forgiveness that had absolutely no boundaries. That’s sort of unnerving because we want limits and structures by which we can more easily explain and understand forgiveness, but Jesus wants us to glimpse God’s capacity to forgive, and once every limitation we have imposed on forgiveness is dismantled, then we are invited to match it in our own lives. Yes, that is unnerving.

In Jesus, you have given us a picture and a model for forgiveness. Holy God, give us the courage to dismantle the limitations we have placed upon your gracious mercy—limitations we have too often enjoyed in our own lives. Amen.