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At the end of a week-long retreat in a mountain camp setting a
somewhat different kind of worship service was taking place. It
was at the end of a day that had been set aside for introspection
and talking about feelings of self-worth. There had been some
discussion about how to deal with feelings of guilt and the need
to feel forgiven, and how it is often easier to forgive someone
else than to forgive oneself. Since this was a retreat of church
people there was frequent reference to the forgiving nature of
God. But now the whole day was coming to focus in a time of
worship.
All the people were gathered around. They did some singing and
read several portions of scripture. There was a brief talk about
forgiveness -- forgiving others and forgiving one's self -- and the
need to put aside past hurts and injustices, and guilt of things
done or left undone, in order to move forward into creative
living. To that end they had all come prepared. Earlier that
afternoon they had done some writing about the person they wanted
to become. This they saved for future reference. And on a
separate page or more they had all written about things in their
lives they truly wanted to put behind them -- to get rid of for
good, to release, to be forgiven of, and to forget. They brought
this latter bit of writing with them to the service, and there
was a time to look it over and think about it one last time.

Then came an offering of sorts. The people were asked to take
out and read, and then wad up the pages representing the things
they wanted to get out of their lives, and to place them in a
large ceramic pot which someone brought around to each one. It
was interesting to note that some dropped in their wadded paper
thoughtfully -- almost reluctantly. A few did so with some self-
conscious tears. A few slammed their wad into the pottery jar
with energy and determination. Then the worship leader stood
before them and held aloft the heavy ceramic jar in both hands,
and led the group in a prayer. The prayer was that God help
banish the pain and guilt of the past, and give them strength to
remove -- even to "smash," as the prayer put it -- all that was
sinful and unworthy within them. At that point the leader dropped
the heavy clay pot and it came smashing down on the stone floor
with a resounding crash and broke into dozens of pieces. People
who had had their eyes closed now had them wide open. The prayer
seemed to sputter on for a couple short sentences, but for the
most part that sound had ended it. There was a physical reaction
on the part of everyone there. They had been startled wide-eyed
awake by the noise and the visual impact of the broken pot. It
was a shocking and dramatic moment, and it took a moment for
everyone to know what it meant. Then they understood! That crash
was supposed to symbolize a turning point or a departure, and it
was meant to be remembered.
After the momentary shock a man from the back row said a
resounding, "Aw-right!" A quiet older lady tried not to be timid
and ventured a "Hooray!" A couple of people applauded. And then
the whole group put aside their timidity and began to applaud and
stood up, smiling and nodding to one another. A few people
exchanged hugs. There was another song or so and a closing prayer
and they all went out into the night, apparently feeling somewhat
lighter and happier. Perhaps some felt relieved. It had been a
mountaintop experience to remember and treasure.
"Behold, I am doing a new thing, do you not perceive it?" With
images that do not seem to go together, Deutero-Isaiah

sets out an agenda of the unexpected for people who expected
nothing. Imagine it, even the beasts giving praise to God --
beasts as different as the jackal and the ostrich! Now there's an
unlikely combination. There will be streams in the desert --
hardly a place one would expect to find refreshing water to
drink. And the Lord proclaims refreshing drink to those still
called chosen people, despite the fact they haven't behaved much
like chosen people.
You see, at one time God did choose these Israelites, and they
chose God, and there was a covenant between them. But then they
became unfaithful to the covenant. And now they have gone off
looking for fulfillment everywhere else, and have ignored even
the smallest praise of God. There's a contemporary image for you.
And that is not all. The Lord says, "You have burdened me with
your sins; you have wearied me with your iniquities." (Isaiah
43:24) Then comes the surprise. "I, I am he who blots out your
transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your
sins." (Isaiah 43:25)
Is something missing? Is there a step left out? Is this some
kind of a trick? Is Isaiah, speaking for the Lord, declaring
forgiveness before repentance? Yes! Of course we've always
assumed it works the other way around, and there are plenty of
scriptural precedents for saying it that way, and it is certainly
the way we prefer to practice it -- repentance first and then
forgiveness. "Don't forgive him until he is truly sorry." And we
might add, "And I'm really going to make him sorry!" One reason
we tend to hold back our forgiveness is because we see it as a
weapon -- a way to get even. So we turn around our hurt as a
poisoned dart to strike back. But putting aside the tendency to
get even, another reason we tend to reserve our forgiveness of
another is that it seems like giving up something of ourselves.
It does indeed demand something of us, to climb down from our
pedestal to humility. Think for a moment of the drama of two
children glaring at each other through teary eyes as a mother
requires one to say, "I'm sorry," and the other to say, "You're
forgiven," or words to that effect. Both are reluctant, to
apologize or to forgive.

That mother/father God-image is a good one for us to remember,
standing over us and trying to bring about some reconciliation to
allow us to get on with life. But the order of the transaction is
not always the same. Forgiveness is a risky thing. We fear it may
not always be deserved. Of course if forgiveness were always
deserved we would likely not do much forgiving. To forgive even
prior to another's repentance may get the forgiver involved more
deeply with the forgivee than was either anticipated or desired
at first.
On a daytime talk show some time ago, a couple was interviewed
whose daughter had been killed in an auto accident. The accident
was the fault of a drunk driver. Grief over the daughter's death
almost destroyed her parents as well. The man whose fault it was
went to trial and was sentenced to prison. That's the justice we
all would probably want to see, as did those grieving parents.
But here is where the scenario breaks with the expected and
becomes something entirely new and different. Of course no words
of remorse on the guilty man's part could bring back the lovely
young girl he had killed but he said them anyhow. Nor could any
amount of anger and grief on the parents' part change what had
happened. During the trial they watched him, seeing how his own
grief at what his irresponsibility had done was changing his own
life as well. As they watched and listened they became aware that
they were seeing another life disintegrating before their very
eyes. It was then that the compassion borne out of their
Christian faith overwhelmed their anger and tempered their
sorrow. To everyone's surprise, and even their own, they went to
visit this young man in jail. It was a tense meeting at first as
you might expect, especially on his part. Despite their immense
grief these two parents were able to express not only their
concern for him, but the fact that they had already forgiven him
for what he had done. While nothing could ever erase from his
mind the memory of what he had done to their daughter and to
them, he was forgiven by them.
They continued to visit him during his entire prison term, and
in time they came to care for and even love him. Imagine

that! When the young man was let out of prison they invited him
to visit them, and he even stayed with them, as he tried to put
together the shattered pieces of his life. They helped him get
into an alcohol abuse treatment program. Later on he began to go
to church with them. In time he came to be regarded almost as a
member of their family, incredible as that seems. But then, true
forgiveness often involves us more deeply in the life of the one
forgiven than we anticipate. Perhaps fear of that involvement is
another reason we sometimes withhold it.
This man appeared on that show with the two parents and told
how their love helped him to conquer his drinking problem, and
expressed to all who heard him his continual amazement at the
power of forgiving love. I dare say that talk show touched more
people with the incredible power of the forgiveness of God
through people than any church service. "Behold, I am doing a new
thing." Do you perceive it? Can you imagine it? "I am he who
blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not
remember your sins," not because you deserve it, or even ask for
it, but "for my own sake." (Isaiah 43:25)
We need to forgive for our own sake, too. Otherwise it festers
within us. We have to get rid of it, cleanse our inner being and
get on with our life. Strange, but true, the hardest person to
forgive is oneself. We all know people who go around heaped with
guilt for real or imagined wrongs committed against someone, or
things of which they are ashamed. We may have experienced to some
degree the debilitating weight of the ever-present nagging guilt
we cannot seem to shake off. We all must find a way to put the
past behind us and leave it there. Not that we will forget.
Certainly we hope we will learn from experience -- even bad
experience -- but we must not let it unravel our life.
A sailor, writing of the pleasures and hazards of sailing
small pleasure boats, told of the choice that faces one whose
craft is wrecked within sight of land. There are two choices. One
is to stay there and cling to the wreckage, hoping someone may
eventually see and come to the rescue. The other

choice is to let go and strike out for shore. Either choice has
its risks. One may cling to the wreckage and never be found, and
perhaps drift farther out to sea. On the other hand, in
attempting to swim to shore there is the possibility one may
become exhausted, or get muscle cramps, and drown. But he said
that if he had a reasonable chance his option would always be to
try to reach the shore, because that is where life goes on. The
unfortunate thing is that too many people choose to cling to
whatever wreckage there is in their lives, failing to see that by
doing so they are drifting farther and farther from life's
possibilities.
There are various ways of trying to let go of the wreckage in
the will to choose life. We may only need the encouragement and
advice of a good friend, or perhaps a compassionate pastor.
Sometimes it is more complicated than that and we need to seek
the help of a trained and skilled counselor to help us. In any
case the point must be that we must get to the place where we can
forgive ourselves and move onto the mainland of living once
again.
Jesus understood the disabling effect of feeling unforgiven --
by God, or by someone else, or even by oneself. As his popularity
was growing, people crowded in upon him. On one such occasion
there were so many people crowded around and in the house where
he was that nobody could get near, and yet he taught those who
came to him. A few clever people had a man who was paralyzed whom
they wanted to get into the very presence of Jesus. The fact he
was paralyzed is a good analogy for our own situation whereby we
are often paralyzed in a spiritual or psychological sense, though
not often in a physical sense, by the guilt we carry.
Now imagine this scene! Those people took apart part of the
roof of the house, and with ropes lowered the paralyzed man down
to Jesus. Jesus saw the opportunity to do something completely
different from what they had heard from him. He said to the man,
"Your sins are forgiven." But the people who heard him say that
could not comprehend the new thing God was doing through Jesus in
that new concept. They questioned,

and Jesus explained, "Which is easier, to say 'Your sins are
forgiven,' or to say 'Rise up and pick up your bed and walk?' "
(Mark 2:9) So he said it in the manner of a healer, which they
could accept but which was equally valid! They understood the new
equation. What difference does it make when a person is released
from the devastating effects of this sinfulness they feel,
whether it is the result of the treatment of a psychiatrist or
psychologist or a pastoral counselor or some other means. Nor do
we have to put a religious label upon a thing in order for God to
be working through it. For God is doing a new thing, and it may
be such as we have never seen before. The part that faith plays
in all this is that even before we feel the forgiveness of
another person, or are able to forgive ourselves, we are already
forgiven by God. "I, I am he who blots out your transgressions.
.. I will not remember your sins." And if God will not remember
them, it is time for us to let them be in the past and look
forward.
There are a couple simple techniques that, as a counselor, I
sometimes suggest with therapy, especially if one needs to
resolve problems from the past involving people who are no longer
around. One is to get away alone to someplace for a day or two
for a personal retreat -- for relaxation and enjoyment and
thought. What I suggest is that the person spend at least part of
the time writing in a notebook about the things that we've
discovered together that are unresolved. The writing may consist
of letters to someone who is already dead -- maybe a parent or
sister or brother or friend -- with whom there are still some
unresolved issues. The letter is to say the things you wish you
had been able to say to bring about resolution and forgiveness
and reconciliation. Or you may write a narrative, or just notes,
about the painful unresolved problems from the past; perhaps
about feelings of inadequacy, or regrets for deeds done or
opportunities missed. The letters and notes are not for sending
in the usual sense. They are to be written, and read, and perhaps
prayed about, and then destroyed. Yet, it is much like that
worship service mentioned earlier, and with the same intent. Make
a ceremony of it. Put

them into a fire one by one, or into a paper shredder if you
wish, though that can sometimes take on its own particular
symbolism. It ought to be a ceremony that bespeaks finality. Then
at the end of each such experience, and certainly at the end of
the retreat, do something to celebrate. How you celebrate is not
important, so long as for you it really is celebration.
The other technique is for those who prefer to be more verbal,
and whose minds may not be patient with the tediousness of
writing. Of course one needs to get away to a place where, if
anyone hears, they won't wonder about someone who is talking and
carrying on conversations when nobody else is there. We may talk
to ourselves at other times, but when we do it in earnest and
with a purpose people who overhear tend to become a bit uneasy.
The technique is to talk out what we want to leave behind, and if
this means talking to the people who are no longer with us --
declaring your love, asking forgiveness, giving it -- then do
that. Don't do it for benefit of a tape recorder. You don't want
to save this stuff, so don't record it. You want to get it behind
you, and to leave it in the past.
"Behold I am doing a new thing; do you see it?" Can you
understand it? Can you accept it? Yes, even you who have looked
for life's fulfillment in all the wrong places. Even you who have
gone far away from God. Even you who have wearied the Lord by
loose and careless and hurtful and sinful living. Even you! Even
me! To us the message is the same. The One who has the power to
erase the guilt of all our transgressions tells us "I will not
[even] remember your sins." Now, that's good news! How's that for
something different and new and wonderful? We can jettison the
wreckage from our lives and swim free toward new life. We can
arise from our paralytic bed and go home. And seeing the change,
people about us may be amazed, and they may even glorify God, and
say, "We never saw anything like this."