“Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift.”
II Corinthians 9:15
One of my all-time favorite movies is Walt Disney’s 2005 production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a movie that brought the second book of C.S. Lewis series The Chronicles of Narnia to the big screen. The part of the movie I treasure most is the scene in which Aslan (a depiction of Christ) restores Edmund (the prodigal child of the four Pevensie siblings) on a hill outside of Aslan’s camp. When Aslan and Edmund finish their conversation, Aslan walks Edmund back to the camp where his brother, Peter and sisters, Susan and Lucy are waiting. Though Edmund is the one who faces his three siblings it is Aslan who addresses them. He looks at the trio and says, “Here is your brother. There is no need to talk to him about what is past.”
What a profound statement! “No need to talk to him about what is past.” God’s word says it another way. “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)
The Bible tells us that God does not even remember our sins. “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” (Isaiah 43:25). Psalms 103:12 even tells us, “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” In other words, like Edmund, there is no need to talk about our sins once God forgives them in Christ Jesus. They are gone, and God has completely forgotten them.
So now what does all this have to do with our forgiving others? That seems to be a difficult thing for us to do. Our human nature wants to keep rehashing what they have done to us. Our human nature wants a pound of flesh for their sin against us. Our human nature wants to hold on to their sin, unable to put it to rest. Our human nature wants to make sure they don’t forget the pain they caused us. Removing their sin as far as the east is from the west can seem impossible for us.
Why is forgiving such a difficult thing for us to do? A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of watching my favorite movie once again. I think this was about the seventh or eighth time. When the movie came to that treasured scene about Edmund’s restoration, and I heard Aslan say to the other siblings, “There is no need to talk to him about what is past,” our problem with forgiveness hit me. I believe we struggle forgiving others, because we tend to forget all that God has forgiven us for. All our sin, past, present and even future, was been forgiven and removed the moment we place our faith in Jesus Christ.
Sincere gratitude is what we tend to lose sight of – our gratitude to Christ for removing our sins completely. This gratitude should be our motivation for paying forward to others the gift of forgiveness.
Darlene