Forgiveness - HOPE

The following is from an a booklet found at http://www.christianity.co.nz/forgive5.htm
This will take some time to read and think through, but I wanted to post it in light of the comment made by Anonymous at the blog dated 3-4-08 titled Leadership Thought.
This booklet has been helpful to me and this part of the article is very good.

Why forgiveness matters
I would suggest seven reasons why forgiveness matters, most of all to the one who gives it, but also to those to whom it is offered. Five are mainly negative, two are positive.
1. Unforgiveness will hurt no one more than myself
R. V. G. Tasker said:
Probably more characters are spoiled by the nursing of grudges and the harbouring of grievances than by anything else.
"All his Holy Spirit needs is one little crack, a closed thing pushed ever so slightly open, a faint cry - I forgive"M.Hancock & K.Mains
Harbouring resentment has been linked to many physical and mental complaints. We can become locked in the straightjacket of our own resentment. It has been described as "a videotape in the mind playing its tormenting reruns, shackling us to the unremitting pain of a raging memory."
Some of the most difficult and painful traumas many people have to cope with result from hurtful experiences that happened in childhood. This may be especially difficult, both to diagnose and deal with. This is because we were so vulnerable when they happened and lacked the maturity to deal with them, and also because such things get buried deep in the subconscious. But, here again, forgiveness must at least become part of the process if healing is to occur. Maxine Hancock and Karen Mains, in their book Child Sex Abuse, write:
If we think of the illustration of the household of the mind with rooms double boarded, then we will have a good visual picture of the effect of sin on a human soul. Into those closed rooms we have shoved the guilt of our own sins, our bitterness, our hate, our vengeful spirits as well as the memory of the pain of grievous acts against us. Until we take the key of forgiveness and tentatively push it into one of those locks and (however reluctantly) open those doors, God's love is often unable to reach our most inward, wounded selves. His light cannot shine through the dusty, shuttered windows with the shades pulled and the curtains drawn tight. All his Holy Spirit needs is one little crack, a closed thing pushed ever so slightly open, a faint cry - I forgive.
"I only forgave when I saw how destructive my hate was"G.Martinez
Gracilla Martinez tells how she learned to forgive when her 15-year-old son, recently having become a Christian, was executed under Cuba's Batista regime. "Don't hate them," the boy had urged that morning as they huddled in their last embrace. "Forgive them, Mamacita. Forgive them, or they will be the victors." But she could not. "In my heart," she recalls, "I vowed revenge. I would get even with his assailants."
For 10 years, Graciella Martinez carried the burden of that hatred, fuelling it with plots and plans for retaliation. At a workshop on forgiveness, she said:
I only forgave when I saw how destructive my hate was, how it consumed my energies, crippled my friendships and disabled any good that I wanted to do. I wanted to be freed from the prison I had erected in my life. I saw, finally, the truth of my son's last words, that when we return hatred to those who hate us, we fall into playing their game according to their rules - and do them the great favour of hurting ourselves.
Edith Buxton, in her book Reluctant Missionary, says:
I wish I had learned earlier about forgiveness, both giving it and receiving it and the freedom of spirit it can bring. You cannot have a happy old age without it. My daughter once wrote these words, "When a situation has broken down in hurt and bitterness, and disagreement is so deep there seems no solution on earth - there remains forgiveness."
2. Unforgiveness will often hurt others
Too often unforgiveness will affect those around us and may well be passed on to the next generation. This can happen in families and on a larger scale in countries. The terrible toll of unforgiveness has been all too obvious in countries such as Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia and East Africa today. The innocent are often involved. As Ghandi said, if everyone were to follow the "eye for an eye" principle of justice, the whole world would go blind.
When King Alfred the Great finally conquered the Danes who had raped and pillaged England for years, he took pity on his enemies, fed them and offered peace, instead of doing what kings normally did to their conquered foes. His act led to the conversion of the Danish king, with Alfred participating in his baptism, and brought lasting peace to those islands. Historian Arthur Bryant concludes, "No greater act of statesmanship was ever performed by an English king."
It has been said that forgiveness is the only way in which the power of sin in the world can be absorbed, neutralised and brought to nothing.
3. Unforgiveness may deny healing to another
Unforgiveness may deny healing to another to whom I alone can give it. Bishop Stephen Neill expresses this thought in a perceptive way in A Genuinely Human Existence:
Forgiveness recognises the wrongdoer as a person. He has done wrong, and about this there is no pretence. But this is not the whole truth about him. He is still of infinite value as a person, since every person is unique and irreplaceable by any other. Since he has so greatly injured himself by doing wrong, he is in special need of help, and help that can be rendered only by the one to whom he has done the wrong...Forgiveness can spring only from a self-forgetfulness that is more concerned about another's wellbeing than about its own, and that longs for the renewal of fellowship even when fellowship has been flouted and destroyed by the wilful aggression of another.
In Decision magazine a remarkable story illustrating this was told by Walter Everett, pastor of United Methodist Church in Hartford, Connecticut. Walter's son, Scott, was murdered in 1987. For the next 10 months he went through various stages of denial, anger, depression and indecision. The first time he saw his son's murderer, Mike, was in court almost a year after Scott's death. During the trial, Mike said he was truly sorry for what he had done.
Walter Everett continues the story:
Someone beside me said, "He didn't mean that; he's trying to impress the judge." I wondered.
God nudged me with the thought, "There's a way for you to let go of your anger and to start the healing process."
Three-and-a-half weeks later, on the first anniversary of Scott's death, I wrote to Mike. I told him about my anger and asked some pointed questions. Then I wrote, "Having said all that, I want to thank you for what you said in court, and as hard as these words are for me to write, I forgive you." I wrote of God's love in Christ and invited Mike to write to me if he wished.
Three weeks later Mike's letter arrived. He said that when he had read the letter he couldn't believe it. No one had ever said to him, "I forgive you." That night he knelt beside his bunk and prayed for, and received, the forgiveness of Jesus Christ.
Additional correspondence led to regular visits during which they both spoke of their growing relationship with Jesus Christ. Later, Walter spoke on Mike's behalf before the parole board and he was given an early release. In November 1994, Walter officiated at his wedding.
Tom Houston says:
Forgiveness does not come to us in a cup to consume for ourselves, but in a pipe so that it flows through us to others. That is the nature of forgiveness.
4. Unforgiveness affects my relationship with God
" Jesus condemns most strongly the proud... unforgiving spirit"
In Matthew 18, Jesus tells a story about a servant who, though he had been forgiven an infinite debt himself, acted in an unforgiving way towards a fellow servant who owed him a pittance. As a result he was ordered by the very angry king to be tortured until he should pay everything he owed. Jesus concluded the story by saying, "That is how my Father in heaven will treat you, if you don't forgive each of my followers with all your heart."
The point of the story is obvious. If we are Christians, we have been forgiven an infinite debt that we owe to God which we could never hope to pay ourselves. If we in turn do not share that forgiveness with others, God treats it very seriously. It is significant that, in Matthew's gospel particularly, what Jesus condemns most strongly is the proud, uncharitable, unforgiving, jealous spirit.
Lorne Sanny, for many years President of the Navigators, an organisation committed to building Christian leadership, says that bitterness has put more people on the shelf for God than any other thing he knows. He describes it as "a sort of self-cannibalism" that eats your insides out.
Contrast the example of Dr Joon Gon Kim, one of Korea's outstanding educators and Christian leaders. It was springtime and the rain was falling gently as the family were sharing the events of the day. Suddenly, without forewarning or provocation, an angry band of communist guerillas invaded the village, killing everyone in their path. The family of Dr Kim was not exempt. In their trail of blood, the guerillas left behind the dead bodies of Dr Kim's wife and his father; he himself was beaten and left for dead. In the cool rain of the night he revived and fled to safety in the mountains with his young daughter. They were the sole survivors.
Dr Kim is a man of God and he had learned from Scriptures to love his enemies and pray for those who persecuted him. What was he to do? The Spirit of God impressed upon him that he was to return to the village, seek out the communist chief who had led the attack, tell him that he loved him and tell him of God's love in Christ. This he did and God honoured his obedience. Dumbfounded, the communist chief knelt in prayer with Dr Kim and committed his life to Christ. Within a short time, a number of other communists were converted to Christ and Dr Kim helped build a church for these and other converts. He was later to become the pastor of one of the largest churches in South Korea.
God cannot bless us unless we keep the channels of forgiveness open.
5. Unforgiveness is readily exploited by the Evil One
One of Satan's strategies to hinder our personal growth and undermine the growth of God's kingdom is to encourage and exploit the lack of forgiveness among God's people. Paul urged the Corinthian believers to forgive one of their members who had caused hurt. He said that he himself had forgiven the offender and gave his reason: "I have done this to keep Satan from getting the better of us. We all know what goes on in his mind" (2 Corinthians 2:11).
E. M. Bounds, in his book Satan, says:
A lofty spirit, ready and compliant with the spirit of forgiveness, free from all bitterness, revenge or retaliation, has freed itself from the conditions which invite Satan and has effectually locked and barred his entrance. The readiest way to keep Satan out is to keep the spirit of forgiveness in. The devil is never deeper in hell, nor farther removed from us than when we can pray "Father forgive them; they know not what they do."
6. Forgiveness demonstrates Christ's presence
"When you forgive someone who hurts you, you are dancing to the rhythm of the divine heartbeat"
Jesus said that people would recognise us as his disciples by the way we love one another (John 13:35). One of the ways love is expressed is in forgiveness. Someone has said that "when you forgive someone who hurts you, you are dancing to the rhythm of the divine heartbeat." It points people to God as the great Reconciler when they can see reconciliation amongst his people.
An Australian Bishop tells a delightful story about the Sawi tribe of what used to be Dutch New Guinea, now Indonesia. There had been a large movement to Christ among these people and there was a radiant new first-generation congregation. A young man went off behind a bush with one of the girls. The trouble was that she happened to belong to someone else. Adultery! They are pretty hot on these things amongst the Sawi tribesmen so the husband came to bump off the wretched youth, who, by this time, was not only very frightened, but exceedingly repentant. What did the church do? They gathered round this man, and, assured of his repentance, begged and begged and begged the irate husband to forgive. At long last he agreed that he would accept 14 sows as a peace offering. The youth hadn't got 14 sows, and so the congregation gave of their own money and bits and pieces to get 14 sows. The bishop arrived to see them being carried up the hill to this man.
7. It shows our own experience of God's forgiveness
"Nothing in this lost world bears the impress of the Son of God so surely as forgiveness"
It has been said that nothing in this lost world bears the impress of the Son of God so surely as forgiveness.
After the Second World War, still suffering physical and emotional scars from Nazi brutality, Corrie Ten Boom felt called to preach forgiveness through Europe, as they dug out of the war's emotional rubble. She had lost most of her family in concentration camps for helping in the rescue of Jews. She was sure she had overcome her own desire for vengeance against the German SS troops who had dehumanised her and her loved ones in those camps. One occasion took her to Munich. Outside a church after the Sunday Service, she found herself looking hard in the face of an old SS guard. He had watched and sneered at frightened women prisoners as they had been forced to take delousing showers in front of him. Suddenly for Corrie the memories were there again - the roomful of mocking men, the pain and shame of it. And now with the war over, the man had come up to Corrie, beaming and bowing politely. "How grateful I am for your message," he said. "To think, as you say, that he has washed my sins away." He put out his hand to her. It was too much for Corrie and she kept her hand frozen at her side. Forgiveness comes hard for anyone, and it seemed to her outrageous to expect it of her at that time, in that situation.
She goes on to tell in her book, The Hiding Place, how at that moment angry and vengeful thoughts boiled through her system and she struggled to raise her hand, but she could not. She felt nothing, no emotion. Not the slightest spark of forgiveness. So she breathed a silent prayer, "Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness." And Corrie was touched in that instant by the One who can forgive everyone everything, because he himself had born the cost of those actions, the cost of forgiveness, on the Cross in his own body. Corrie felt the force of her own forgiveness and the understanding of that forgiveness. In the freedom of being forgiven, she raised her arm and took the hand of the man who had done unforgettable things to her.
Corrie was later to say:
We never touch the ocean of God's love so much as when we love our enemies. It is a joy to accept forgiveness, but it is almost a greater joy to give forgiveness.
We demonstrate our own experience of that divine forgiveness by the way in which we extend it to others. What could be a greater witness to the truth of the gospel than the sight of Betty Elliot in Berlin, walking along arm in arm with two Auca Indians who had murdered her husband in the jungles of Ecuador and made her a widow. This happened at the World Congress of Evangelism in 1966. Since they didn't know anything about Western civilisation and had come straight from the jungle, she was teaching them how to use a knife and fork, how to use the toilet and all the other things necessary for coping with modern ways of living. Or similarly, Marge Saint, whose husband was killed by those same Indians, spending time with the tribe and seeing her two children, now teenagers, baptised by one of the men who had killed their father. He was now a Christian leader in his tribe.
The Communion Service is supremely the moment in our Church Services when we focus on the cost of our forgiveness. In the old Anglican Service, before the congregation receives the bread and wine, symbols of the Cross, the minister would always read these words from the Book of Common Prayer: "You that sincerely and earnestly repent of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours, draw near with faith..." It is not only the acceptance of our own forgiveness that qualifies us to join in celebrating such an event, but also the extending of that forgiveness to others. So we demonstrate our membership in the family of God.

For the basic outline of this booklet I am indebted to a sermon I heard preached by Rev. Philip Saunders, Vicar of St. Andrews Anglican Church, Waverley, Melbourne, in 1983.