The Face of Forgiveness

Mel Leaman

S he was the one person who knew the truth about my father’s transgressions on the mission field some seventy years ago. This 95-year-old matriarch of service leaned as heavy on the table as the words she had to say. With lowered gaze and softened voice she stumbled over Dad’s offenses. Her countenance suddenly brightened: "But, your mother was a saint. Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego she went through the fire and didn’t smell like smoke" (Dan. 3:25).

My mother often read Lettie B. Cowman’s book Streams in the Desert. In the October 17 entry, Cowman cites Galatians 6:14 as a backdrop to the trials of the apostle Paul and Silas. She writes in her typical disconsolate fashion, "They had asked to be meek and He had broken their hearts; they had asked to be dead to the world, and He slew all their living hopes; they had asked to be made like Him, and He placed them in the furnace."

My mother wrote: "October 17—the very best in the book—1942." That was the year Dad told the truth. The mission board rightfully sent them home. Mom was not a stranger to the fiery furnace. Then in her late twenties, she must have shared this reading with her friend, now 95 these generations later. I wonder if they wept together.

She bought this devotional for my father on their first Christmas in 1935. It was not meant to be a pre-nuptial promissory note. I find sad irony in knowing it was this very book that helped her endure the sexual improprieties of the man she loved.

For Mom, a goodly part of her Christian sojourn was about suffering, trusting God, and the attempt to walk in the freedom of forgiveness. The smoldering ashes of dashed hopes from other offenses would leave the seven siblings smelling like smoke, but Mom would not let the pungency of unforgiveness linger. In that commitment, she was a saint.

My father was also a saint. Two years ago I visited the Tanzanian village where my parents served. To my great fortune I interviewed seven elders in their 80’s and 90’s who came to Christ through Dad’s and Mom’s ministry. They knew my father’s heart.

The common question I asked was, "What was my father like?" Without exception each person poured out accolades of praise and affection. They remembered him as one of the most loving missionaries they knew. Three of the seven emphatically told me, "Be like your father." In some ways, minus Dad’s shadow-side, that’s just what I hope to be.

Dad practiced what he preached about Jesus’ last words: "Forgive them." My father was very compassionate. Time and time again the poor were seemingly thankless recipients of Dad’s benevolence. During later years, when he invested in real-estate, the rich connived without remorse. Dad had the audacity to believe that love and forgiveness spoke louder than lawsuits and retribution. In times of family crisis he would make pastoral visits to those who had hurt him. He helped without mention of past offenses.

Years later some came back to say "thanks," others to seek forgiveness, and a few to find freedom in the love of Jesus Christ. "Forgive them." Those are powerful last words!

The philosopher Friedrich Nietszche considered Christian virtue a manipulative means of "will to power." He held disdain for apparent weaknesses like kindness and forgiveness. My family struggled with many sins and strained relationships that had the potential to devastate any sense of kindred spirit between us. Anger, fear, frustration, hate, hesitancy to trust, demands for justice, and desire for vengeance all played a part in our relationships. Nietszche, in his twisted way, would have loved that part of us.

Yet there was a greater love that drew us. It, in fact, defined us. A cross stood at the core of our corporate heart. Notwithstanding the tears of separation, the years of counseling, the heartache of words and ways that diminished us, and the face-to-face confrontations that empowered us, our faith in the hope of the cross became our systemic salvation. As long as we could see the cross we would not be blinded by our brokenness.

Each of us fought for ourselves, but we all knew we must also fight for the other in some ultimate story of forgiveness. We were raised on a host of biblical passages and parables that reminded us of our own need for mercy, grace, and forgiveness, so we could not simply point fingers.

Somehow we had to be ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:20) for each other. We had to learn how to "speak the truth in love . . . and grow up into Christ" (Eph. 4:15). It is tough to turn toward the offender, state your case, and call for a new way of relating. We did our best to turn our swords into plowshares (Isa. 2:4).

Forgiveness, we discovered, is not conditioned by forgetfulness, but it does require the determination to lay down our weapons of just retribution. Then our hands are free to open the door for restored relationship. However, there are no guarantees. It takes two to tango and trust must be earned. We are still learning the art of being "as wise as serpents, but as innocent as doves" (Luke 10:16).

The moment of reconciliation between the Old Testament characters Jacob and Esau leaves the older brother free of fiery furnace smoke. The younger sibling, Jacob, plays some dastardly tricks on Esau. He spends years on the run in fear that Esau will take his life. Now, the day of reckoning is upon him. Esau sees Jacob from a distance and runs to meet him. The younger shakes in fear, but the elder "falls on his neck and kisses him" (Gen. 33:4).

Jacob in astonishment looks at his brother and says, "Truly, to see your face is like seeing the face of God" (Gen. 33:10). Like the cross, this is a scandalous picture of the power of weakness. Esau is a saint. There is no scent of smoke on his clothes!

The cross is an intolerable offense to most of us, not because a good man died but because it seeks to excise the human desire for vengeance and appropriate retribution. We demand that everybody get just what is deserved. That’s only fair!

Jesus turns our sense of justice upside-down. The world stands by the Calvary cross to watch what Jesus does with vengeance and violence. As the old hymn notes, "he could have called ten-thousand angels" and blitzed his enemies with celestial wrath.

But he didn’t. The crowd is astounded by an incredible, if not cowardly, act as Jesus cries out: "Father, forgive them." What strength is there in such weakness?

Retribution is much more gratifying than absolution. Yet Jesus invites us to "pick up the cross and follow" (Luke 9:23). He challenges us to be daring enough to believe that he has "overcome the world" which lives by sword of mouth and hand (John 16:33).

There is another world, another kingdom that beckons us. In that kingdom, forgiveness trumps ven-geance. In that world there is no greater gift than the power to birth new creation from the chaos of our lives. The potentialities of that world are at hand in each moment the heart is hurt. I want that world! Its gaze is focused on the face of Jesus.

The final snapshot of the Leaman clan will someday be taken. When all the stories are told and it is hung in the hall of history, our family framed will look like forgiveness. There may still be a lingering scent of smoke in the room, but salvation will be in our eyes. Send my regrets to Nietszche.

—Mel Leaman, West Grove, Pennsylvania, is Associate Professor of Religion, Lincoln University. Leaman was raised in a Mennonite home, then following college and a few years of teaching, he was Christian Education and Youth Director at Asbury United Methodist Church, Maitland, Florida, and joined the UMC. Long a minister in Ohio and Pennsylvania, he received a D.Min. in marriage and family from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1990. He can be reached at jmleaman@comcast.net or mleaman@lu.lincoln.edu