We sometimes feel it unfair to forgive, and I think in many ways this feeling is right; it is unfair to forgive. When you forgive someone who has wronged you, then on an economic level you are coming out at a loss. Someone has wronged you, and you have been content to remain wronged. This is true for emotional wrongs just as much as physical acts.

If it’s unfair, then it follows that we don’t forgive because it is fair; rather, we forgive in spite of it being unfair. It is to be expected that we should not want to forgive others, for we do not wish to be unfair to ourselves. So, if we come to terms with the idea of forgiveness being essentially and fundamentally unfair then I suggest it becomes easier to think about the true reasons, motivations and limitations for forgiveness.

Often-times we delay forgiveness. We put off forgiving others until we come to a decision that the matter is so far past, better explained, and half-forgotten, so that it somehow feels easier to forgive. It’s harder to forgive when the wound is fresh; we feel that the cost is too high, that to forgive too much too soon would be too hard or too charitable for us.

Now, the root of forgiveness is love; to forgive someone we do not want to forgive is a pure, certain and direct statement of love. Yet, more than that it is a gloriously and mightily unfair act of love. To forgive in opposition to our own knowledge of what is just and fair is to make a real and costly sacrifice, to deny ourselves retribution and vengeance for the sake of the love we have for our fellow men.

The question then is not how we might forgive others, but where we might look to find that great love, to fill our hearts until they overflow with charity. The more perfectly we love, the more perfectly we will forgive, not through our own work but through the work of that love which is within us.

This, interestingly, is something that differentiates Christianity from the major religions; for it is this very story, a history of a love so deep that it could not bear to see just judgement on mankind. It is an account of a sacrifice so great and so very deeply unfair that not just one person was forgiven, but the sins of the whole world. The Gospel of John puts it in this very simple way “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son”. Is it possible for there to be an act more unfair than for Jesus Christ to be rejected, persecuted, beaten, mocked and put to death by hanging on a cross amongst thieves?

God could have stopped what happened at Golgotha at any time. God could have saved Jesus and spared him from death. It would have been fair and just to send angels to defend him. He didn’t; and that he didn’t was for you and for me, because he loved us so much that he was willing to pay such a price to achieve our forgiveness. God, our perfect judge, just punisher, and omnipotent creator came to earth as man to be judged unfairly, punished wickedly and destroyed even to death so that he could take onto himself the punishment and judgement of our sins. What Jesus did on the cross was to pay the greatest price of the greatest love. Jesus said “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep”; and this was his intention from the very beginning.

The Prophet Isaiah, writing around seven hundred years before Jesus was born, wrote movingly about what Jesus was to do for mankind. I’ve included an extract from Isaiah 53 below, although the whole chapter is deeply meaningful:

He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.

Here then, at the foot of a Roman cross, do we find that deep and pure love, that perfect charity from which comes true, perfect, and very very unfair forgiveness. Here then, in the midst of perfect love do we find perfect forgiveness. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him (John 3:16-17).

Perhaps when we feel we don’t want to forgive others, or want to to put it off until it seems less of a challenge, we might do well to remember the deep love that God has for us, that whilst we were yet sinners, he died for us (Romans 5:8). How dreadfully unfair, how terribly costly, how very humiliating – but yet, how gracious, how merciful and how loving – that God who is the very definition of righteousness should sacrifice so much for desperate sinners such as us. God didn’t wait until our sins were half-forgotten, nor did he wait for us to first apologise and mend our ways; rather he saved us when we did not seek him and in spite of our hatred and rejection of him.

Forgiveness then is not a matter of difficulty, but a matter of love. To forgive one another is never wrong, but as we’ve discussed, it is usually deeply unfair. But, let us rejoice in this very unfairness, for it is in this unfairness that we reflect the glow of the love our creator has for all mankind, that love that drove God to commit the most unfair act of all eternity to take away the sin of the world.