RADIO PROGRAM NO. 417 - Easter and Forgiveness

[The participants are Michael Thorneloe and Robert McKinnon.]

McKinnon: We use the word "relevance" a lot today, but I think it becomes meaningful when we think about the Easter message and what it means to most people in the 1970's. Many people take part in sunrise services and so on, but I'm not sure just what effect this has on the individual's life-style.
Thorneloe: What about a person who's been holding a deep-seated grudge for some time and wants to forgive but just doesn't know how? How do you think most people would handle that sort of feeling?
McKinnon: I think, quite honestly, that it is very difficult. I imagine that the usual way is to make some outward gestures of forgiveness and then try to behave accordingly. But most of us find it difficult to forgive in our hearts.
Thorneloe: Well, the Easter message shows what can be done along this line—that relationships between individuals needn't die through lack of forgiveness, but that our dead hopes of being able to forgive can be uplifted, can be resurrected. This involves the lifting of thought above that which would kill joy and peace and happy relationships.
McKinnon: This is an interesting concept. I wonder if you could expand on it.

Thorneloe: Let's look at the basis for forgiveness given in the account of the crucifixion and the resurrection. Because Christ Jesus understood the true nature of God and man, he could forgive when he had every reason not to. He had been betrayed by one of his close followers. He had been forsaken by those around him when he was arrested. Peter, in particular, had told him (Luke 22: 33), "Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death." Yet it was Peter who (Luke 22:54) "followed afar off" and on three occasions before the dawn, before the cock crew, denied even knowing him. It is recorded in Luke (22:61), "The Lord turned, and looked upon Peter." One can imagine the hopelessness and the anguish of that moment! Forsaken at the trial and cross, except for a few—even though there must have been some he had healed in those crowds—even then Jesus was able to say (Luke 23:34), "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." After the resurrection he hastened to comfort and forgive his unfaithful followers.
McKinnon: The recounting of the story of Easter always brings a feeling of warmth and hope to anyone who hears it, and you mentioned that there is a basis for forgiveness inherent in the story.
Thorneloe: Well, forgiveness is there, isn't it? It's apparent on the surface. Now, the basis from which Jesus worked, and which enabled him to forgive his unfaithful followers and those who crucified him, was the same basis that he had used throughout his healing and teaching ministry, that is, his seeing man as God made him, as the perfect child of God, the perfect image of God. This goes much deeper than what we appear to be personally. Man is tenderly and lovingly cared for by God, divine Love. In this Love, which is God, there is no hatred and nothing to hate. There is only Love, God, expressing Himself throughout His creation. What this means for man—the man you and I really are—is that we live and move and have our being in divine Love, not in matter or with cruel and sometimes appalling personalities. Man has a spiritual nature that cannot be touched, maligned, attacked, or persecuted.
McKinnon: But there is still the problem of reaching our own hurt feelings and hostility. How do we do that? How do we deal with these so that meaningful forgiveness can take place?
Thorneloe: This is why an understanding of the wholeness of man as God's expression is so important. It isn't only a matter of what we humanly know or even of what we are humanly conscious of. Everything that's wrong, every innermost thought or feeling, needs to be cleansed and wiped away through deep understanding of man's completeness as God's expression. It was the Christ, the true nature of the man Jesus, that lifted him above the feelings of hatred. The saving aspect of God, the Christ, Truth, lifts us and shows us what man really is.