I once heard someone say, "To forgive is to hand revenge over to God." Perhaps in some cases this makes sense, but I confess that this kind of "forgiveness" leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth. Surely forgiveness does not mean to store up all the evil and ugliness and offenses for a day of reckoning. "Forgive so that you may become children of your heavenly Father." We belong to the Father because he forgave us in Jesus the Messiah.
In a land of conflict I mostly hear words like peace, justice, compromise, negotiation, rights, security, law, and so forth. But I never hear the word "forgive." No wonder efforts to find peace keep stumbling.
Our Father sees in people a value much greater than the sin committed by them. He paid the heaviest price to claim back the most precious workmanship of his hands. When I forgive I declare that I agree with God: It is precious to gain back a brother or sister, just as God claimed me back through forgiveness in Christ.
When I forgive, I do not lose my right to revenge, because in fact I never had that right. Vengeance belongs to God, and I do not even have the right to ask him to take revenge. But I do have the privilege to ask God to forgive as he forgave me and to follow suit. This is the mark of belonging to the Father in Christ. I forgive you because I want to gain you as my brother or sister, just as I want to receive your forgiveness when I need it.
Forgiveness paves the way for peace. Without it we get stuck in the mires of today or dragged back into the bitter past. Even today we hear words like "Throw the Jews into the sea"; "Kick the Arabs back into the desert." Instead, may our declaration be "Throw past offenses and sins into the sea, and release the scapegoat of forgiveness into the wilderness." May the sea to the west and the desert to the east be reminders of mercy and forgiveness, with what is between them the land of the free.
May we learn to practice godlike forgiveness and so gain true freedom in Christ.