Reflection Paper #4-Forgiveness

Mary C. McAleer
23 March 2010
Dr. Ardy Bass
New Testament 120
Reflection Paper #4

A great theme of the New Testament is forgiveness. I’m sure some would argue that forgiveness is the greatest theme, period. However, I’ve always struggled with this idea, since forgiveness—a hopelessly abstract noun—is ridiculously hard for me to understand. Forgiveness is so tough; it requires that: 1. I must be sorry, 2. whomever I am apologizing to must care enough about me and/or the situation to accept my apology, 3. they must be kind enough to forgive me, and 4. I must be willing to never commit the injustice again. Holy shit, that’s too many complicated emotions for me! And yet, it seems as though we ask and give forgiveness many times every day. Reading Luke I feel as though Jesus offered a different kind of forgiveness than we use. We often hear the phrase, “Jesus came down from Heaven to forgive our sins.” What does this mean! Did you ever hear Him say “I forgive your sins” to every single person? Absolutely not! Jesus actively forgave in a way that gave the people a more literal second chance.

In the parable of the Barren Fig Tree, the poorly producing fig tree will be cut down, until a man says “ ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and shall fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down’” (Luke 13:8-9). One of the farmers, therefore, is offering the fig tree a second chance. Karris mentions that the fig is a valuable and savored fruit, so chopping down a fig tree would require throwing away a great deal of potential. However, the first farmer feels no hesitation in doing this, since the tree hasn’t produced a fig in the past. The second farmer has faith in the fig tree, that it will produce a valuable fig in the future with some extra care and a second chance. Luke then offers a more practical example in which Jesus sets a woman free of her “infirmity” in Luke 13:10-13.

Ultimately, I feel like Jesus’ actions and purpose represent the same forgiveness in the fig tree parable. Forgiveness as we know it repairs an evil or wrong action that we’ve committed, but Jesus’ forgiveness does not fit the four-step model I’ve constructed in the Introduction above. Instead, Jesus, like the farmer, offers a second chance to those that he saves, in hopes that they’ll produce good “fruit” in the future. As supported by Luke in the Fig Tree Parable and the Crippled Woman story, Jesus has faith that we are good people capable of good future actions. So, now we ask, is this what our forgiveness means? When we apologize, are we really promising to change our wrong actions in the future? Are we promising not only to correct our wrong actions, but to produce good, fruitful actions instead? And in forgiveness, are we confirming our trust and faith in those we are forgiving. Did Jesus do this? Perhaps. Perhaps the potential dichotomy between Jesus’ forgiveness and our forgiveness shall remain undefined for now. It’s abstract, anyway!