Free Water (Forgiveness VII)
Brandon Cook
The stakes around forgiveness are high, as Jesus makes clear time and again. Our very souls hang in the balance. One of Jesus’ hardest sayings about forgiveness comes in Matthew 6:15: “…if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.”[1]
How on earth do we make sense of such a statement? We know God is good and loving and that He wants our freedom. He certainly wants to forgive our sins and bring us into wholeness. So is our own forgiveness and right relationship before God dependent on something that we do, or that we refuse to do? How does that square with our understanding that it’s by God’s grace alone that we are brought into right relationship?
Perhaps an image will help us: picture a water hose, filled with water. The water is the mercy and life of God, already given to us. There’s nothing we can do to earn it; God pours His life over us because He loves us. But at the end of the hose, there’s a release valve holding the water back. We have a choice to make. We can open the valve to release the water, or we can leave it closed. Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness is that by forgiving, we open the valve. And by refusing to forgive, we close the valve and ensure that the grass all around us will wither. Jesus speaks in sobering and provocative terms in order to get our attention. If we don’t forgive, we won’t experience the abundance of God.
We experience God's abundance as the sweetness of our adoption and as the joy of living in touch with our true selves. It’s always our false selves, our sinful self-obsessions (what Paul calls our “flesh”), that refuse to forgive and that remain mired in offense and bitterness. Our true selves are very difficult to offend, because when you are aware of being held by God, it’s the most natural thing in the world to forgive. When there’s plenty of water, it’s not hard to be generous with it. Indeed, in the process of forgiveness, the waters of God knock away the mud that covers our true selves, which have been adopted by Jesus, and we discover the endless fountains of “living water” in God.[2]
This has nothing to do with earning the grace of God. However, we do participate with Him in bringing about His Reign, even in our own selves. We are responsible for posturing ourselves to receive the freely-given water.
For all of these readings in one place, order my book 'Learning to Live and Love Like Jesus.'
[1] Cf. Mark 11:26 and Luke 6:37.
[2] John 7:37-39. See also John 4:1-42.