Forgive Us Our Trespasses
Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Savoir Jesus Christ.
Today we are concluding our series on the Lord’s Prayer with the fifth petition, forgive us our trespasses.
In the Small Catechism Luther wrote:
And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
What does this mean?
We pray in this petition that our Father in heaven would not look at our sins, or deny our prayer because of them. We are neither worthy of the things for which we pray, nor have we deserved them, but we ask that He would give them all to us by grace, for we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment. So we too will sincerely forgive and gladly do good to those who sin against us.
You may wonder why I saved the fifth petition for last. I think it’s fitting that we discuss forgiveness last in the series because forgiveness is what Christianity is all about. Without the death and resurrection of Jesus we could never stand in the face of the judgment the Law brings on us. Thanks to the blood shed on the cross, we are forgiven; our sins are washed away as if they never happened.
Let’s revisit the last three verses of the gospel reading. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
We can categorize burdens in three ways; physical, mental, and spiritual. No where in scripture does it say the physical and mental challenges of this world will be lessened although our attitude towards them may be altered. When Jesus talks about burdens He is really talking our spiritual burdens. Our spiritual burdens can be lessened and even eliminated by our faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As our spiritual burdens lesson it can change our whole outlook and even relieve some of our mental and physical anguish.
For discussion our spiritual burdens can further be categorize into worry, guilt, and grudges.
Worry can wear us down cause us to expend energy that comes to no productive end. We need not worry though; God has proven that He will walk with those that believe in His name. Throughout scriptures we are reminded of His love and concern for His people.
In the context of the fifth petition we really want to focus on guilt and grudges. Both can take a heavy toll on us mentally and physically.
There is nothing wrong with feeling guilt for our sins. That is the Law working in us reminding us that we are sinful flesh. That even when we want to do right we do wrong. We do things that we know are wrong despite our awareness that it is wrong; we are sometimes overcome by our sinful nature.
In the reading from Romans we see Paul struggled greatly with this very problem. It was the book of Romans that opened Luther’s eyes to grace as he also struggled with sin. We are at war with our own sinful bodies. Paul found out, life is not a self-help book with a set of steps to follow to get the results we want. That was the Pharisaic Law approach to life. Life and especially the Christian life is a constant struggle with sin. The heavy weight of guilt can wear us down mentally and physically but the good news is that we aren’t judged on our sins. As believers we are judged on the perfect one Jesus Christ. We don’t need to walk through life carrying that burden Jesus has taken it from us.
Karl Menninger, a famed psychiatrist, once said that if he could convince the patients in psychiatric hospitals that their sins were forgiven, 75 percent of them could walk out the next day! Think about how much suffering there is just because people don’t know or won’t accept the message of grace and mercy.
What about us forgiving others? Do we forgive and forget? Do we even just forgive? Again we find ourselves at war with our own sinful flesh. Jesus wants us to be disciples and go out and make disciples. To do so we need to follow the Teacher’s examples. And I don’t believe He taught His followers to hold grudges.
Sometimes it’s hard to forgive, but I’m sure we all agree that it’s even harder to forget. And if we don’t forget did we really forgive? I don’t really know for sure. But I have to say there are a few people that I would like to say I forgave that I fear my reaction on meeting them again would probably be other than what Jesus taught.
Of course we also have the repeat offenders that take advantage of our good will at every opportunity. What should we do about them? Well Jesus told the twelve to turn away from any village that didn’t receive the good news. He also told them to flee oppressors. Jesus taught to still love them but not bow to them. If they continue to take advantage of our help they are oppressors. Its okay to turn away after the message has been given and not accepted. If they only want to take and didn’t learn from your example walk away you have done all you can. In today’s language we are enablers if we don’t change that relationship and break the cycle. In truth we are not demonstrating love or forgiveness when we allow bad situations to continue. Our resources are better spent seeking others in need of our message and help.
As Christians we talk about forgiveness but we are reluctant to speak about the sin. The church has succumbed to the political correctness of society. In some circumstances we are even threatened if we speak about the sin. In effect forgiving has been redefined to being nice. Jesus was nice but He also rebuked people when necessary. We are well within the teachings of Christ to talk about the sin in a loving corrective manner that leads to the message of forgiveness. After all we are all in the same boat. We can talk about the sin and rejoice in sharing the gospel with another suffering soul.
Regardless of the circumstance we exert a great deal of energy carrying around guilt and unforgiven hurts. And yet we know it’s not the way God intended for His people. Perhaps this is one of the reasons people like to call us hypocrites, we aren’t living what our master preached, or even what we say.
Ask the Holy Spirit to lift your burdens to give you the comfort of forgiveness and in turn to show forgiveness.
In the name of our Risen Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
