I’m a chaplain in a hospital, and it was years ago when I walked into the room of a 58-year-old man. I introduced myself as the chaplain, the minister of the hospital. The man was sitting up in his bed, looking sullen. I asked, “What’s up?” and he replied that he had cancer, a bad heart; his kidneys and liver were shot. He had three months to live, and looking at him I believed his prognosis.
He didn’t seem in the least concerned about medical issues; so I grabbed a chair, sat myself down and asked, “So, what’s the problem?”
Greater than Life or Death
The man just got out of jail in another part of the country and was here—looking for his family. He asked me if I had any leads on a local church that might know them. I didn’t.
Maybe I should have asked probing questions to bring out details; maybe I should have broken out the Four Spiritual Laws pamphlet; maybe I should have assured him Jesus still loves him. However, in that soberest of moments, I could only listen.
They say nothing’s worse than death, but those who say that weren’t in the room with this man whose hollow eyes spoke of a fate far worse than the death he imminently faced and couldn’t care less about.
Apparently the family didn’t want to be found by its father. Greater than life or death is forgiveness.
Perhaps you have a student with a father such as this. Perhaps teenagers feel they have no power against a parent who couldn’t care less. Perhaps you have youth who are angry, bitter or denying the hurt associated with parents who couldn’t care less. Perhaps you feel you can’t minister directly to this issue. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The Christian Faith
In Ephesians, Paul laid the foundation for the practice of the gospel of Jesus Christ: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (
Paul calls us to be compassionate; and from the original Greek wording, this compassion comes not from the heart, but from our bowels, from our guts, our deepest place of emotions. The bitterness, anger and rage of verse 31 also can be understood as coming from this deepest place of our emotions.
Power
Though not forgetting the hurt, forgiveness is letting go of our bitterness, anger and rage of verse 31. We withhold forgiveness thinking this is the only way by which we control someone who has more power than we do. We don’t want to hand forgiveness to a parent who doesn’t deserve it, and it is true that withholding forgiveness of a parent is powerful.
However, clinging to this forgiveness becomes our futile attempt to control a lousy situation that we cannot control. Withholding forgiveness doesn’t bring our parent or us closer to Christ. In this context, withholding forgiveness becomes an idol of control. “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs” (
In the belly of the great fish, Jonah understood what it is to want life on our own terms. Forgiveness is not a commodity to be marketed, but a grace to be given. We are not to withhold forgiveness; Christ didn’t. Foundational to the practice of Christian faith is forgiveness.
Forgiveness
We don’t want to forgive a parent; but Christ didn’t want the cross, and for our sins he died. Christ forgave us; we are to forgive others. By forgiving parents, even if they don’t know it, we give to the Lord control of a situation we can’t control anyway.
The 58-year-old man? I don’t know what happened to him, besides death. I do know he sought his family more than health, and that his family could choose to extend forgiveness.
I also know I saw the power of forgiveness—given by Christ, held by sons and daughters—is greater than life or death.
