A Grand Theme – Forgiveness”
Isaiah 53:3-4,6,11
Luke 23:32-34
The forgiveness of God is a grand theme in the Bible. In the Old Testament forgiveness was given through animal sacrifices. Leviticus 16 describes the Day of Atonement. This special Jewish Day is called Yom Kippur. The High Priest sacrifices a bull for his sins and takes two male goats for the sins of the people. Leviticus 16:6-10
Some scholars believe that during this time you could fit 210,000 people on the temple mount. 18,000 people were used to build the temple, using 2.3 million stones. Some of the stones were ten feet by ten feet by 80 feet – weighting hundreds of tons.
Picture a couple hundred thousand people gathering after ten days of fasting and soul searching. One man, the High Priest is going into the presence of God on their behalf
Leviticus 16:20, “When Aaron had finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites – all their sins – and, put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself their sins to a solitary place, and the man shall release it in the desert.”
Tradition has it that a Gentile with no connection to Israel was the person appointed to take the Scapegoat away to the desert. No one wanted to see the goat walking around in their community. This was one sin laden goat. All the sins of the people were placed on the goat. The High Priest would place his hands on the goat representing all the people and the man appointed would take the goat away into the desert. The word for scapegoat is “ahzahzel” which carries the idea of “taking away.”
Jesus is our Scapegoat. In John 19:15 when Pilate asked the crowd what they wanted him to do with Jesus? The crowd shouted! What did they first shout? “Crucify him?” No, first they shouted, “Take him away,” then they shout “Crucify him!”
John 19:16 “Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.” Jesus is led outside the camp, the city of Jerusalem, by Gentiles. Do you see the connection between the crucifixion of Jesus and the scapegoat? Jesus is our Scapegoat.
Jesus came as our High Priest to die once and for all to provide forgiveness of our sins. When Jesus came he radically changed the way people find forgiveness of sin. The Old Testament was fore-shadow of the death of Jesus on the Cross.
Jesus prayed from the cross “Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing. And they divided his clothes by casting lots. The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of god, the Chose One.’” Luke 23:34
Jesus prayed for the forgiveness of the people and the rulers sneered at him.
Jesus did not pray, “Father bring judgment on them for their punishment of an innocent man.” Jesus offered forgiveness.
The non-Christian world looks at forgiveness one way and the Christian world looks at God’s forgiveness another way.
I. The World says “You Owe, You Pay.”
The non-Christian world has the same view of forgiveness as Lamech in the Old Testament. Genesis 4:23-24. The first two sons of Adam and Eve were Cain and Able. Cain was jealous of Able and killed him. After Cain killed Able he became a wanderer on the earth. A mark was put on Cain by God and the word went out, “If anyone killed Cain God would avenge his death seven times over. Cain had a son Enoch, Enoch had a son, Irad, Irad had a son, Mehujael and Mehujael had Lamech.
Lamech said, “I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech is avenged seventy-seven times.
The law of Lemech is the law of the non-Christian world, “You hurt me or my family and you pay.” It is the idea that if you hurt me I have the right to hurt you with not only equal pain but greater pain. Revenge is always justified.
Jesus countered the Old Testament Law of Lemech with forgiveness as a way of life. Peter came to Jesus one day: “Someone’s hurt me. He’s done me wrong. Not just once. I know I’m supposed to forgive him; but it feels so unfair. Why should I always have to be the one to forgive? How often do I have to forgive him – seven times?”
The Rabbis said you had an obligation to forgive a person three times, so Peter more than doubled that view and said 7 times. Why should I forgive? The other person doesn’t deserve it. If I forgive the person will just hurt me again.
Peter was probably taken back when Jesus said he had 70 more acts of forgiveness to go. Jesus said, “I tell you not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Jesus is reversing the Law of Lamech. He teaches there are two ways to live with hurt: the way of vengeance or the way of forgiveness. Forgiveness is to be a way of life not seventy-seven or seventy times seven but a heart attitude.
II. The Christian World Says “You Owe, I Pay.”
Jesus often used stories to drive home an eternal truth. He uses a story in Matthew 18:21-27 to teach how the Christian is to view forgiveness. Forgiveness in the Kingdom of God is opposite the view of forgiveness from a non-kingdom view.
John Ortberg in his book, Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them,” gives an update version of the story Jesus told in Matthew 18. One day the founder-president and CEO of a large thriving Tech company called his management team, vice president and department heads together for a meeting. It’s tax time for the Roman government. Caesar’s revenue agents have been auditing the books. The Roman government has a flat-tax program: Pay what they tell you or you get flattened.
During the auditing process one of the VPs is discovered to have embezzled a large sum of money. He has cooked the books and taken millions of dollars for personal gain. There is no possibility the VP can pay the money back. He has squandered all the money and has no investments or real estate to pay his debt.
The day of reckoning comes. He is brought before the stockholders and founder of the company. The embezzler is guilty he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar. There is no bankruptcy for him, no rich uncle or no lottery win. He is finished; he will be jailed or sold into slavery. Not just him but his entire family.
The sentence is read: “Sell everything he owns, sell him into slavery, and his wife and children, and his children’s children, until the unpayable debt is paid. Take him away. Next item of business.”
The embezzler decides to take a long shot and humble himself and plead for mercy. What did he have to lose? He falls on his knees and cries out, “I know I’m guilty. I know what I owe. Please show me some mercy! I’ll pay back what I owe you. I just need some time. Give me a grace period.”
Those listening to the story knew the answer. “You owe, you pay.” No mercy would be shown to the embezzler. The CEO is no pushover. He will give the man his walking papers.
But when they look over at the founder-president, the old man can’t speak. He is over come with emotion and all choked up.
As the CEO thinks of the man and his family something happens to his heart and his eyes fill with tears. In the story Jesus calls this “pity” or “compassion.”
The CEO walks over to the man and reaches down and takes his hand and lifts him to his feet and says, “I will rescind the sentence.” He forgives the man his multi-million dollar debt. Grace will be extended indefinitely. The CEO will absorb the loss. He in effect was saying, “You owe, I pay.”
The CEO Master in the story represents a stand-in for God. The embezzler represents you and me.
Forgiveness does not come cheap. We can’t comprehend the price that Jesus paid for our sin. The Cross is the heart of Christianity. The cross shows us the heart of God. God so loved that He gave.
1. To forgive others you give up the right to hurt them back. To forgive you give up the quest to get even.
#Some time ago Dave Hagler, who works as an umpire in a recreational baseball league, was pulled over for driving too fast in the snow in Boulder, Colorado. He tried to talk the officer ouf of giving him a ticket by telling him how worried he was about insurance and how he’s normally a safe driver. The officer said that if he didn’t like receiving the ticket, he could take the matter to court.
At the first gave in the next baseball season, Dave Hagler is umpiring behind the plate, and the first batter us is – can you believe it? --- the policeman. As the officer steps into the batters box, they recognize each other. There is an awkward pause. The officer asks, “So how did the thing go with the ticket?”
Hagler says, “You’d better swing at everything.” Sweet revenge.
2. Forgiveness involves a new way of seeing and feeling. When you are deeply hurt by someone you look at the person, but you don’t see the person, all you see is the hurt.
When wounded and hurt it takes the grace of God to see the person as a human being. We don’t ignore the hurts but we by the grace of God look beyond them.
3. The third level of forgiveness happens when you are able to find yourself wishing the other person well. You no longer hope that the only calls the person gets are from telemarketers and the IRS. You pray for God’s blessing on them and wish them well.
Paul Harvey tells the story of a man named Carl Coleman who was driving to work one morning when he bumped fenders with another motorist. Both cars stopped, and the woman driving the other car got out to survey the damage.
She was distraught. It was her fault, she admitted, and hers was a new car, less than two days from the showroom. She dreaded facing her husband.
Coleman was sympathetic; but he had to pursue the exchange of license and registration data.
She reached into her glove compartment to retrieve the documents in an envelope.
On the first paper to tumble out, written in her husband’s distinctive hand, were these words:
“In case of accident, remember, Honey, it’s you I love, not the car.”
Jesus never changes his word to forgive. No matter how bad the circumstances got he continued to pray, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”.
Today 2000 years later it is still his will and still his word to see us forgiven.
“My dear children, I write this to you that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense- Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole word.” (1 John 2:1-2)
It is the will of Jesus that we are forgiven. And his will never changes. It is the word of Jesus that we are forgiven. And his word never changes. But more importantly it is because of the work of Jesus on the Cross we can experience forgiveness from God.
We have forgiveness because of the work of Christ on the cross. We are saved from the punishment our sins deserve because Jesus took our punishment on the cross.
Listen to the words of Isaiah 53:4-6.
“Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
Without forgiveness there can be no reconciliation. The Apostle Paul said “that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:19) Forgiveness is often the first step of reconciliation. And for there to be reconciliation someone has to take the first step.
#Once upon a time, two brothers who lived on adjoining farms fell into conflict. It was the first serious rift in 40 years of farming side by side, sharing machinery and trading labor and goods as needed without a hitch. Then the long collaboration fell apart.
It began with a small misunderstanding and it grew into a major difference, and finally it exploded into an exchange of bitter words followed by weeks of silence.
One morning there was a knock on John’s door. He opened it to find a man with a carpenter’s toolbox. “I’m looking for a few days work,” the man said. “Perhaps you would have a few small jobs here and there. Could I help you?
“Yes,” said the older brother. “I do have a job for you. Look across the creek at that farm. That’s my neighbor, in fact, it’s my younger brother. Last week there was a meadow between us and he took his bulldozer to the river levee, and now there is a creek between us. Well, he may have done this to spite me, but I’ll go him one better. See that pile of lumber curing by the barn? I want you to build me a fence – an 8 foot fence – so I won’t need to see his place anymore. That’ll show him.”
The carpenter said, “I think I understand the situation. Show me the nails and the posthole digger, and I’ll be able to do a job that pleases you.”
The older brother had to go to town for supplies, so he helped the carpenter get the materials ready and then he was off for the day.
The carpenter worked hard all that day measuring, sawing, nailing. About sunset when the farmer returned, the carpenter had finished his job. The farmer’s eyes opened wide. He jaw dropped. There was no fence there at all. It was a bridge – a bridge stretching from one side of the creek to the other! A fine piece of work, handrails and all – and the neighbor, his younger brother, was coming across, his hand outstretched.
“You are quite a fellow to build this bridge after all I’ve said and done.” The two brothers met in the middle of the bridge, taking each other’s hand. They turned to see the carpenter hoist his toolbox on his shoulder. “No, wait! Stay a few days. I’ve a lot of other projects for you,” said the older brother.
“I’d love to stay on,” the carpenter said, “but I have so many more bridges to build.”
When Jesus died on the cross he became our bridge to God. The cross spans the gap caused by sin. The cross also is the bridge of love to those we forgive in Jesus’ name.
Jesus taught that “When you are forgiven you forgive others.”
We pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” That’s a big word, “AS.” We would like to skip over the word “as.” Jesus adds accountability to “forgiveness.”
Matthew 6:14-15 “For if you forgive men when they sin against you; your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
The CEO in Jesus’ story had pity and mercy on the embezzler and set him free. But the embezzler did not have a forgiving heart. He went out and demanded people pay him who owed him a hundred dollars or less. If they refused to pay he sent them off to jail.
When the CEO heard what the forgiven embezzler was doing he called him back in and called him to account for his lack of forgiveness. “Because you refused to forgive others you will be thrown into prison until you can pay back the entire amount.”
Then Jesus gives the final word: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
The choice is yours. Vengeance or mercy. Prison or freedom. Hatred or grace. Life or death.
Choose wisely.
