“That’s not fair”, is a phrase we often hear both from kids and from adults. During the last few months I was forced to think of our idea of fairness and how we are blinded and sometimes enslaved by our faulty idea of fairness. There could be many reasons why fairness is almost impossible here on earth, but the two most important reasons why it should not be expected are: the wickedness of the world in which we live and the sinfulness of human heart. Every time we are hurt or wrongly judged we have this strong urge to get even, well humanly speaking we may have the right to get even but the tragedy is that we cannot get even to the exact measure of the hurt we endured.
The problem with revenge is that it neither gets what it wants nor will it stop the problem when the score seems to be even. Human history has witnessed and is still witnessing the consequences of the endless cycle that repeats itself through centuries and through many generations, the problem of unsettled justice. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth sounds fair, but it’s almost impossible to execute it to the right measure. Nations, kingdoms and people groups are still at battle because the slate is not wiped clean yet. As Gandhi once observed, if everyone sought ‘an eye for an eye’, eventually the whole world would go blind.
The problem with revenge is that it neither gets what it wants nor will it stop the problem when the score seems to be even.
Lewis B Smedes (bestselling author and professor emeritus of theology and ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary) was probably one of the few contemporary evangelical leaders who wrote very insightful thoughts on ‘forgiveness’ in the recent times. In his article that appeared in Christianity Today he mentions that “Fairness never comes. The chain reaction set off by every act of vengeance always takes its unhindered course. It ties both the injured and the injurer to an escalator of pain. Both are stuck on the escalator as long as parity is demanded, and the escalator never stops, never lets anyone off…Only forgiveness can break the chains that bind wronged and wrongdoer, the innocent and the guilty, whose roles reverse with each turn of the cycle of vengeance.”
“Vengeance is having a videotape planted in your soul that cannot be turned off. It plays the painful scene over and over again inside your mind. It hooks you into its instant replays.” – Smedes
Honestly it is much easier to seek vengeance or justice than to forgive because forgiveness is an unnatural act, especially to a fallen humanity it is a totally foreign concept. According to Smedes “Vengeance is having a videotape planted in your soul that cannot be turned off. It plays the painful scene over and over again inside your mind. It hooks you into its instant replays. And each time it replays, you feel the clap of pain again. Is this fair? Forgiving turns off the videotape of pained memory. Forgiving sets you free. Forgiving is the only way to stop the cycle of unfair pain turning in your memory.”
Smedes suggests that “forgiving creates a new possibility of fairness by releasing us from the unfair past. A moment of unfair wrong has been done; it is in the inevitable past. If we choose, we can stick with that past. And we can multiply its wrongness. If we do not forgive, our only recourse is revenge. But revenge glues us to the past. And it dooms us to repeat it. Revenge never evens the score, for alienated people never keep score of wrongs by the same mathematics. Enemies never agree on the score because each feels the wounds he receives differently from the wounds he gives. How many Beiruts can ever equal a Holocaust? How many of her put-downs equal his slaps in the face? We cannot get even; this is the inner fatality of all revenge.” What has happened is in the past and is over, it is important that we do not let the past dictate both our present and future. The Germans killed almost 6 million Jews under Hitler’s rule, but does that mean the killing of 6 million Germans by the Jews will wipe the slate clean? No it only escalates revenge and hatred.
The problem with un-forgiven hurt or hatred according to Dr. Smedes is that “it travels with us, sleeps with us, hovers over us… and broods over us while we die. Our hate does not even have the decency to die when those we hate die…for it is a parasite sucking OUR blood, not theirs. There is only one remedy for it – forgiveness. Forgiveness is God’s invention for coming to terms with a world in which, despite their best intentions, people are unfair to each other and hurt each other deeply. He began by forgiving us. And he invites us all to forgive each other.” Forgiveness is not an option for a Christian because our very salvation is rooted in God’s willingness to forgive us while we did not deserve his forgiveness. We were forgiven so that we will extend forgiveness to those who do not deserve it; I still sometimes pause before I pray “Forgive our sins as we forgive those who sinned against us…” it’s difficult to forgive but the alternative option is terrible, so let’s free ourselves of the burden of bringing justice and fairness to this world and let God work on that project. Smedes says “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” – Dr. Smedes
– – Author: Rev. Francis Burgula – –
