FORGIVING AND (NOT) FORGETTING

Forgetting the harm someone has done to you seems nearly impossible. Perhaps you know exactly what I mean. Many of us bear scars that speak of a painful time.There are certain names, places and memories that are impossible to forget. It’s not that we want to remember what happened and go on carrying our wounds. The problem is that we cannot forget.A friend of mine has, in my opinion, an impossible situation with regard to forgetting. His life has been reshaped because of the betrayal he experienced years ago. Everyday there are reminders all around him of what has been done. He simply cannot forget. He beats himself up over this often because he has been told his entire life he is supposed to “forgive and forget.But what do we do when, like my friend, when we have experiences that are so painful we cannot forget? If we cannot forget painful experiences then how can we forgive? We can all agree, this is not easy. In fact, it’s tremendously difficult and painful.But maybe it’s supposed to be; consider the central symbol in Christianity: The Cross.What does that do but remind us of the mess and brokenness that led Jesus to go there? Why does the Bible promise us that God will not remember our sins, if Jesus has the marks of execution on his body? Central to John's vision of the life to come in the book of Revelation is the Lamb looked as if it has been slain. How can God forgive and forget the sin that led to the death of his Son?How is the Lamb, the cross, the execution marks on the hands and feet and side of Jesus a symbol of forgetting? It is in this paradox that we see the beauty.In the cross we see the memory of sin placed squarely on the person of God who removes our sin and the memory of pain. It’s as though God himself says, "I'll take your hurt - all of it - even the painful memories. This is what I did this when I died for you."Our hope lies in the reality that in the new world God will sit on a throne in a world in which the old order of things has passed away - all things are new - even our memories. Paul reminds us that we are new creatures, and that the old has gone. What does this mean?It means that as much as you have been shaped by your hurt, your hope is in the already renewed life that Jesus has given you. This life says that rather than pain shaping your past you have been freed to remember the power and freedom of forgiveness. It’s not that we dismiss the pain, or discount the difficulty of our journey. But it does mean that we recognize that even our greatest wounds, deepest pain and greatest agony will one day be transformed into beauty by the God who wastes nothing.And we should never forget that.