Corder's July Fest

Since this is the season for freedom, I thought I would spend a little time talking about freedom but from a different aspect. Freedom in our minds has some attachment to the lack of boundaries. But freedom doesn’t mean no boundaries but selected boundaries. There are those who are held against their will. Such are slaves whose boundaries are forced. True freedom is to be slave to that which brings life. For example, in America we celebrate freedom but such doesn’t mean the absence of boundaries but the presence of boundaries which leads to life.

Let me paint a situation for you and you tell me what you think. Suppose you had been wrongfully treated. Suppose you were held against your will. Suppose the people who were holding you against your will had abused you, tortured you, tried to starve you, and had harmed others that you cared about deeply. What do you think your reaction would be to such a situation?

In a book entitled The Sunflower, Simon Wiesenthal wrote about his story. During his own imprisonment under the Nazis, Wiesenthal was pulled out of a work detail and led up a back stairway to a dark hospital room. A nurse left him alone there with a badly wounded SS officer. In confessional tones, the soldier told Wiesenthal of a terrible atrocity against a group of Jews along the Russian front.

All of the Jews of a particular town were herded into a wooden building that was then set on fire. Burning bodies leapt from the second floor, and soldiers along with this dying SS soldier, shot them as they fell. After perhaps two hours of rambling discourse, he finally explained why he was telling the story to Wiesenthal.

“I know that what I am asking is almost too much for you. But without your answer I cannot die in peace.” He then asked Wiesenthal to forgive him for his crimes against the Jews. Wiesenthal stared at the SS officer, swathed in yellow-stained bandages with gauze covering his entire face, for some time. What could he do? What would he say? What do you think he should do?

Wiesenthal made his decision. Without saying a word, he left the room. The dying soldier was left without the forgiveness he had begged. The rest of the book consists of 32 reactions to it. Jewish rabbis, Christian theologians, and secular ethicists gave their analysis. Twenty-six said Wiesenthal was right. Only six thought he had acted inappropriately.

Why are we at times so slow to forgive? Because the depth of our hurt wants the other person to hurt. Because forgiveness seems to cheapen what has happened. Because forgiveness seems to suggest that everything is okay when it isn’t. Because to forgive seems too easy. And we know this about extending forgiveness so as a result perhaps it makes us all slow to confess.

Why are we so slow to confess what we have done wrong? Fear of rejection. Embarrassment. Because we know that a confession can’t stop the hurt. Because a confession seems to cheapen what has happened. Because confession seems too easy.

But there is no greater freedom than freedom from the tyranny of sin. But such freedom does not come without confession and forgiveness. Paul says in Romans 6 that we at one time were slaves to sin which leads to eternal death. But true freedom from sin comes when one becomes a slave to God. This freedom brings eternal life.

In Ephesians 4, Paul tells us to forgive each other as God has forgiven us. Such a command is easy as long as you are not the one wronged or the one who needs to confess. God has not, however, left us in the dark about how he responds to confession and how he looks at forgiveness. He is quick to forgive when confession is made. He is certain to treat us with dignity and honor. He has promised not to remember our sin. So we are to be like God when it comes to those who confess and when it comes to forgiving. I’m not sure which is harder—to forgive or to confess. But unless we do both, we will not find the true freedom that we seek.

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