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I often hear that the TV has a lot of junk on it. Last week I saw something
on TV along with millions of other viewers that was the most remarkably
good and Christian moment I have encountered for many years.
Did you see it? Did you see Anthony Walker's mother on television, when
she was asked if she forgave the people who murdered her son.
With tears in her eyes, she told how Jesus, dying on the cross, forgave
the people who had put him there. With much the same pain in her eyes,
although for a very different reason, Gee Walker said "I will follow
my Lord's example. Yes, I forgive them."
The costliness of her discipleship challenged me to the core. You could
see by the woman's face that this was no easy recitation of words. She
meant what she was saying, and saying it cost her - more than words can
say. But she did say it, where everyone could hear, where everyone was
witness. She put her faith on the line, and then she stepped up to the
line.
This was following her Lord when it was tough discipleship. This is Christianity
at work.
But what does it mean to say I forgive.
It doesn't mean that she doesn't want them to go to jail. She said, "I
hope that while they are in jail, they will think about what they have
done and come to see that it was terribly wrong."
It doesn't mean that what they did wasn't wrong.
It doesn't mean that she doesn't feel the pain and the hurt. As this woman
said "A part of me has been killed, taken away. I have to live with
that" and you could see the pain in her face as she said it.
So what does it mean. Is it just words?
No, because you could see the struggle in her as she fought for the words.
This was real and it took a struggle to do it. The words were said with
integrity.
What it does mean, I think, is that she will not hold on to the bitterness.
She will not allow the poison that led Taylor and Barton to do such things
to her loved son, to become a part of her life. She will not be infected
with this.
She will suffer the pain of her grief.
She will endure the agony of facing what happened to her gentle and intelligent
boy.
And she will struggle.
But she will not add to this, the poison of bitterness and hatred which
corrupts the heart from the base up.
Such an act is a statement of faith in Jesus like no other.
When someone has hurt us badly, we want to lash out at them, to inflict
on them the pain they have inflicted on us.
Lack of forgiveness is a terrible thing, yet awfully common.
I have heard, so often, from Christian people, who say
"I will never forgive them for what they have done."
But such a statement cannot exist in the same heart and mind where the
Spirit of Christ is dwelling. The two are opposed to each other.
Gee Walker's statement of forgiveness challenges the most basic human
instincts with the commands of Jesus, and chooses to have faith in Jesus.
Our world is replete with people who have chosen the way of bitterness
and vengeance, cascading whole nations into an eternal cycle of retribution,
fear and hatred.
There is no way off that carousel - other than forgiveness.
Forgiveness does not absolve, and it doesn't gloss over reality. And it
isn't easy.
It is a conscious decision to have faith in what Jesus taught, and to
break the cycle that nothing else can break; to make a hard decision to
not hold the vengeance, the bitterness, the hate, but to hold to Christ,
to love, to gentleness, to healing.
May God bless you Gee Walker, because your example is a blessing to all
who will hear,
for you are like your heavenly Father, who forgives us as we forgive those
who sin against us.
We talk about peace today, as we prepare for the coming of Christ.
We Lit the Candle of Peace.
But there can be no peace, without forgiveness.
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