Day 5 - Forgive Us Our Trespasses

We are nearing the time for anticipating of the birth of Jesus. A time of peace, love and hope for the future. How do thoughts of forgiveness intrude on that? Well, Jesus came ultimately to save us from all our sins, and give His life for our forgiveness.

As children we have little idea about that cost of forgiveness and most of us would prefer to focus on the story of His birth rather than the cruelty of His death. As a child I had a love of reading and stories being read to me, and I had a copy of the Ladybird book telling the story of Jesus’ birth, and I was read the story of His birth so many times that I could retell it almost word for word. However, I little understood the ‘end story’ as a child.

If you are like me, you will have learnt the Lord’s Prayer by rote, learning its pattern and the rhythm of the words, even before understanding the actual words. In fact, I can’t recall the point when I started to make sense of the words and to understand their meaning.

The Lord’s Prayer is probably the most well known prayer in Christian life. Jesus used it to start to teach His disciples to pray. It also takes its place in our worship today as well as our own individual faith journey.

The verses in Matthew’s Gospel are about us using prayer to not only ask God for forgiveness for our sins, but when we say:

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors - Matthew 6:12;

we are either saying we have forgiven others who have trespassed against us OR taking it as read that we are going to forgive others when they have wronged us.

Words we regularly say, but do we mean them? In our world today there is a lack of willingness to forgive despite the fact that we all need forgiveness because we are not perfect and we sin. These days everything is highlighted threefold in the media, and we all have an opinion about it. Even our Royal Family are not exempt from needing to be forgiven, but often there seems to be little room for forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a word that is glibly used but we rarely give it any real importance. How easy to say but not so easy to do.

“And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you”. - Ephesians 4:32.

Often it is easier for us to do the wrong thing – sometimes through ignorance, or because it is the easier/quicker route to a conclusion. To go along with the crowd.

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there is many that take it”. - Matthew 7:13

So how easy is it to forgive ourselves, those close to us and those more distant?

Think about some of the current issues that have more serious implications –

• Post Office scandal

• Ukraine - Russia situation

Maybe not as straight forward to forgive!

There are things which appear distant to us, and which don’t immediately or directly impact on our day to day lives. As Christians we need to be careful that we don’t become complacent and that we face things that challenge us to allow us to continue to grow in faith. So, as we approach the season of Advent, consider challenging yourself to look again at how you see forgiveness. Discuss it with others and pray to God for His help.

Kathy Shaw