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A road worth travelling

Emma Keenan

16/02/10

The first autobiographical book I ever read was Corrie Ten Boom’s ‘The Hiding Place’. I was about 15, and I got a lot more than I had bargained for. Corrie Ten Boom and her family were Jews living in Holland during the Second World War. They spent several years living in a cramped hideout in their home, helping many other Jews to hide and escape. Eventually, in 1944, they were discovered, and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, where both Corrie’s father and her sister Betsie died. Corrie’s faith in God remained strong; when she was eventually released, she became an evangelist, and travelled extensively, talking about God’s love and his forgiveness. Probably the most well known part of Corrie’s story is one of forgiveness on an almost unimaginable level, when Corrie came face to face with a former concentration camp guard; one who had not only witnessed, but been part of, the pain and humiliation she and her sister had suffered. I’ll let Corrie tell the story.

It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former SS man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing centre at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s painblanched face.

He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message Fräulein”, he said. “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!”
His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.
I tried to smile. I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your Forgiveness.

As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.

In 2001, I spent a few weeks in Rwanda. It’s a beautiful country – the landscape is just incredible, so green and lush, it almost makes Ireland look like it’s dried up! Rwanda is often referred to as ‘the land of a thousand hills’ – if you stand on a high point and look around you, all you see are rolling hills covered in a patchwork quilt of grasses and crops. In the south, stretching for 1000 square kilometres, there is the Nyungwe Forest, one of the largest and most ancient forests in Africa. Stretching along the east of the country is the beautiful Lake Kivu. And in the north, on the border with Uganda, the Ruhengeri Mountains. It is one of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen.

The 1994 Rwandan genocide devastated the country. Old tribal differences and disputes between Hutus and Tutsis had been aggravated for months and years, by media, politicians and foreign interests. When the Rwandan President’s plane was shot down, it sparked the beginning of one of the fastest genocides in history. Within 100 days, over 800,000 people had been brutally murdered. Neighbour turned upon neighbour. It is widely known that many of those who were killed, or who lost family members, knew the perpetrators.

When I was in Rwanda, I was invited to attend a wedding. The groom was a pastor who had been married before – his wife and children had been murdered in the genocide. Seven years later, he had met a wonderful lady, and was moving forward with his life. Among the congregation who had been invited to witness his wedding sat the man who had orchestrated the murder of his family. He was a neighbour – the two families had known each other for a long time. The pastor had forgiven the man, re-engaged with him, and rebuilt a relationship with him. It was forgiveness on a level that I had never witnessed before, probably never thought possible, and to be honest, struggled to understand.

Forgiveness – letting go of the resentment we harbour towards someone.

Mercy – withholding from them the punishment they deserve.

Grace – bestowing blessing on someone who doesn’t deserve it.

The capacity of forgiveness, mercy and grace in the transformation of societies and communities is immeasurable. Whether 1940s Europe, or more recently Rwanda, Bosnia, Chechnya, South Africa – the act of stretching out our hand to offer forgiveness, mercy and grace to another brings a freedom to us. It frees us from old resentments, and allows us to walk forward unfettered.

Forgiveness is easy to talk about, and hard to do. It can be easy to talk about far-flung countries, and forgiveness in a context outside of what we know. As soon as we bring it home – into our own political spheres, our own communities, our own relationships – it gets a little uncomfortable, and lines get blurred. I had a situation in my own life where I had to forgive someone who had deeply wronged me. I thought I had forgiven them, until I saw them again! And suddenly all the feelings and emotions of that occasion came flooding back, and forgiveness was the last thing on my mind! I became totally blinded by pain and resentment towards the individual. It took me a while to realise that the only one I was hurting was myself. Offering forgiveness when it is asked for can be hard enough. Offering forgiveness when the other party doesn’t care is even more difficult. But in that kind of circumstance, it can be even more crucial to our own wellbeing that we learn to forgive – as much for us as for them. It doesn’t always happen the first time – sometimes you have to forgive again and again and again. But the act of forgiving someone, even when they don’t want it or deserve it, can free your soul from a lot of pain.

What I learned is that for me to hold a person’s actions, past or present, against them, when Jesus has forgive me and shown me mercy, and heaped his grace upon me, is ever so slightly hypocritical. And it will only do me damage. Corrie Ten Boom had the right attitude. She didn’t feel ready to forgive. She didn’t think she had it in her. But something in that physical act of stretching out her hand to her former prison guard, taking that step even though she didn’t think she could see it through – something in that act released her heart to truly forgive. I would like to live my life in that way.

I know that my true citizenship is in heaven. That my first loyalty is to God. That my responsibility, as a child of God, is to love others as Christ loved me. Love cannot be separated from forgiveness, mercy and grace. God is love, love is God, and forgiveness, mercy and grace are at the heart of who God is. It is my responsibility to show forgiveness, mercy and grace to those around me, with God’s strength. Getting my own way, and having my ‘rights’ acknowledged, is secondary by far to showing grace to others. And so it should be for all of us who profess to have faith in God.

I’ve heard it said that it is the naive who forgive and forget – that the wise forgive and remember. I don’t know how I feel about that. Forgiveness does not mean that we condone someone’s previous actions. It is not the same as acknowledging that the person was not in the wrong. Quite the opposite – it is an acknowledgement of wrongdoing. It may not necessarily mean releasing the individual or group of people concerned from being held to account for what they have done. But harbouring resentments will only hinder us. Do we wait to see a change in someone before we offer forgiveness and grace? Or do we offer it freely, in hope of the possibility of change? I’m inclined to believe God would steer us towards the latter.

God has called us to be a people of grace. I think that has to affect our political opinions, our social attitudes, and our conduct within our relationships. Christians should be the first to let go of resentments, the first to extend our hand in an offer of forgiveness, mercy and grace – in anticipation of the possibility of change. As people saved by grace, we should be the first to forgive – not naively, but with wisdom, and in a manner that is full of grace towards the individuals involved. If we want to see political and social transformation in this country, then we must place forgiveness, mercy and grace right at the heart of our own political views. If we want to see our societies and communities transformed by grace, then we must allow forgiveness, mercy and grace to be at the heart of all our friendships, relationships, and interactions. Not always easy. But a road worth travelling.

Tags: Faith, Life, Made me think, Pain, Suffering