Week of April 17, 2000
Melanie H.

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."
     1 John 1:9

Growing up in a household of six children, I would always hear, "I'm sorry, please forgive me." It would come so often that sometimes I never stopped to really think about the word "forgiveness." We are able to forgive because God has forgiven us. When we realize how forgiven we are, only then are we free to let go of the accumulated hurts stored within our hearts and minds. God is the source of our ability to forgive.

What made the difference? The difference is a wooden cross dug into a hill where a man once died in shared pain for the sins of the world. On the cross, Jesus gathered all the pain we made God feel, and he felt it there with God. He felt the same pain God feels when we turn our backs on him and chase after silly tin cups of our own making. Shared pain, between Jesus and God; this was his way of confessing our sins for us... There is a cross of shared pain in the life of God. This is why he never shuts the door to us. You can bet on it; he will always forgive. He does not merely forget, he does not merely understand; he puts himself at our side and says, "Let's start over. I will be your father. I will be your friend. I will be your savior. So lets get going."

If God has done all that for us, if you are truly a forgiven person, then you can become a forgiving person. You have received the ability to give to others what God has extended to you.

Thank you God for sending your Son, Jesus Christ to serve, suffer, die, and rise again so that forgiveness might be certain and complete. Amen.

Contributed by Melanie H.
Published Monday April 17, 2000
Week 21 of Liturgical Year B