Forgiving Ourselves

April 6, 2025

It doesn’t always happen, but all the readings for today do have a reference to an important theme - the theme of not getting stuck in the past, forgiving ourselves for what we have done, and moving forward. So we have Yahweh telling the people of Israel who have not been faithful to him: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing.  Then we have Paul, who spent the earlier part of his adult life, oppressing the followers of Jesus, telling the Philippians that he has decided to forget what lies behind and strains forward to what lies ahead.  And in the Gospel reading, Jesus tells the woman who has been caught in adultery: Has no one condemned you?” (Then), “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”

Why is it so difficult sometimes to forgive oneself and move forward?

I know parents who looking back at their lives as parents realize that they have messed up their children, or children who realize that in their anger they said things to their now deceased parents that they would want to take back. Or there are those who realize that they should stand up and speak against an injustice, but didn’t do so for whatever self-serving reason, and immeasurable harm has been done to another, or those who have badmouthed a rival and that badmouthing has spiralled into something far worse as it was built further upon by others.  And in these and many other similar kinds of cases, if and when we gather up the courage to acknowledge the great harm we have done, we find we just can't forgive ourselves and move forward for we believe there is no way that we can make amends for what we have done.

And yet the Bible is filled with stories of individuals who did wrongs that they could not amend. It starts with Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel. Then there is Jacob who cheats his brother Esau out of his inheritance, and the brothers of Joseph who sell him into slavery, and so on and so forth, till in the New Testament we have Peter, Paul and so many others.  Some of them could forgive themselves and move on, while others could not.  Why this difference?

Peter and Judas are powerful examples of this theme. Both of them acted in ways that went against one they cared for deeply - and both went away deeply disturbed because they were forced to confront themselves about the genuineness of their claimed commitment to Jesus. Eventually, Judas found he could not live with what he had done, and so hangs himself, while Peter is somehow able to hold on till he meets Jesus after the resurrection. And when he does meet Jesus, we have a Gospel story that speaks of ‘healing’ - where Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him, and after Peter replies three times that he does, Jesus asks him to feed his lambs. (John 21:15-17)

But like the woman caught in adultery, or Zachaeus the tax collector who had cheated many, it is only when one is helped to see that there is an opportunity to change, when one realizes  that one need not get stuck in whatever ‘wrong’ one has done or was involved in, when one receives hope from someone, - that one can forgive oneself and move on. Sometimes, oftentimes, this self-forgiveness comes with someone else showing us that accepting that we did something wrong does not mean that our entire lives were a failure or that we have wasted our entire lives; it just means that we can do better and we are still good, we are still lovable, but we can do better.   

And this hope to do better is the difference between Judas and Peter. Judas believed that there was no hope that he could ever make up for what he had done, while Peter still had hope.  And the Christian belief is that you can try to do better even on your death bed. Even the good criminal on the cross could probably forgive himself for all the evil he had done in  his life, because he saw hope spring up in his heart as he looked at the man from Nazareth who was crucified alongside himself; while the other criminal on the cross had no hope and so could only curse. 

First Reading: Isaiah 43: 16-21

Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down; they cannot rise; they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.

 

Second Reading: Philippians 3: 8-14

More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.  I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death,  if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal,  but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold of it, but one thing I have laid hold of: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

 

Gospel: John 8: 1-11

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and, making her stand before all of them, they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.  Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”  They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.  When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground.  When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.  Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”  She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”