Good News for Good Friday

I know, I know, the last thing you want to read today is a sermon. But … I did the meditation last night at our Maundy Thursday service and told a couple of stories. One of them is fit to repeat here. If it feels too much like a sermon let me know.

I remember a night in high school when a swim meet had just ended and I was talking to a kid and another kid came up to us and said, “Hey, are you guys going someplace?” Just the way he said it rubbed me wrong and I said, “Yeah, we’re going to Petko’s, meet us there,” and that kid went off to meet us at that restaurant while the first kid and I – who never had any plans to begin with – went to our respective homes. It was NOT a nice thing to do. Life went on, we graduated, I moved away from Flint, Michigan, and onto other places and other things, but … from time to time over the past 35 years I have thought of that night, and when I do I’m always filled with a fair amount of guilt. Whenever someone would mention that guy’s name I’d think of that night and feel bad about what a callous jerk I used to be (as opposed to the nice jerk I’ve turned into).

Last year, through the magic of Facebook, the guy found me. I was living in the Netherlands at the time, so we did a little Facebook chatting, but then I moved back to Michigan and one day he wrote and said he had to come to Grand Rapids and wondered if we could have lunch together. We’re eating lunch, catching up with each other, and finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I spilled my guts, confessing how terrible I’ve felt for 35 years and wondering if he could ever forgive me for my unkindness.

“You did what?” he said.

I went through the whole story again.

“That’s funny,” he said. “I remember you were always funny. That sounds like something funny you’d do.”

“You don’t remember?”

“No,” he said, “Not at all.”

“You weren’t scarred for life?”

“No,” he said laughing. “I guess not.”

Well, if he wasn’t, how come I was?

This is the point of last night and today on the church calendar. As Don Henley sang a few decades ago, when you get down to the heart of the matter it’s about “forgiveness.” The first part of forgiveness, from God’s point of view, is that he doesn’t remember. When God remember us, he remembers that he loves us; he remembers that he thinks we do funny and endearing things, but he doesn’t remember the terrible things we’ve done. In Isaiah 43 he says it like this: “For my own sake I will blot out your transgressions and I will remember your sins no more.” For his own sake! Like my friend – better to forget than be scarred by it.

This leads to one of the harder parts of forgiveness – forgiving ourselves. I just touched on this briefly last night, and I won’t dwell on it here, but really if the Good News is good at all, then we’ve got to be able to integrate our lives in a healthy way, to accept and love and most of all forgive ourselves. Like my friend, God forgave and forgot a long, long time ago. Can we do that?