The Mystical Beauty of Forgiveness

- and repentance

Repentance and forgiveness are perhaps inherent to some degree, in all higher mammals. The family dog sometimes teaches human beings how to forgive, when it wags its tail like a windmill and licks us all over, even after the most clumsy insult or callous blow that human beings may lay upon it (I am not sure about the family cat - and elephants are supposed to have a long memory!)

But it is in the human being that forgiveness and repentance rise to the level of a mystery. Evolutionary scientists may try to wish away the mystery by guessing that forgiveness is somehow beneficial to the herd and that this virtue somehow “evolved” along with altruism - although in fact, both virtues mitigate against survival of the fittest and natural selection.  I have even read about a future “altruism gene,” yet to be discovered!

So if they have not “evolved,” both forgiveness and repentance must have an origin outside of ourselves. They must be gifts from God Himself.

This is why Christians, from the very early centuries after the Resurrection of Christ (especially Orthodox Christians and Catholics) have regarded these virtues as mystical gifts.

Other great religions also recognize the unique virtue of both human beings and God to forgive. Islam speaks of Allah’s approval of forgiveness in several sections of the Koran such a this one: “And the recompense of evil is punishment like it, but whoever forgives and amends, he shall have his reward from Allah.” The Bhagavad Gita, Hinduism’s most sacred text likewise speaks of forgiveness as a gift from God.

What has been called the greatest short story ever told, speaks exquisitely of a prodigal son, of repentance and of forgiveness. Jesus’ parable also contains the greatest tribute ever paid to the human race. After the prodigal son has wasted his inheritance in “riotous living” and harlots, the Gospel account says, “And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee.”

Jesus is saying that any wayward scoundrel belonging to this race called human beings, still has the ability to come to his senses and repent and return to a loving father.

In this parable, truly the greatest short story ever told, the return to the father of the prodigal son is itself a paen of poetic beauty - “And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:

And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry:

For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.”

Poets, painters, novelists and Shakespeare himself have all been mesmerized by the mystical beauty of the divine virtue of forgiveness, which “droppeth like the gentle dew from heaven” and which is “twice blessed and -

blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown”

It does indeed bless both him that begs and bestows forgiveness, since the act of forgiveness unleashes a torrent of mysterious, gushing goodwill that sets them both free.

Here is the Dutch master Rembrandt’s magnificent “The Return of The Prodigal”: (1669 original preserved in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia)

The cosmic significance of the return of the prodigal, his repentance, his embrace by the forgiving father and the feast that follows the return are all described by Jesus’ immortal words about the repentant sinner, that just precedes the parable of the prodigal son in the Gospel according to Luke: “I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.”

The word “love” is a beautiful but less than precise word in the English language - but in Greek it is both precise and beautiful. There are four major types of love that the ancient Greeks described (some scholars much better than I, would say six) - and since repentance and forgiveness are products of love, perhaps we should match forgiveness to each word for love in the Greek:

There is the love called eros between man and woman - the kind of love that somewhat frightened the Greeks, but which in the Christian era, was bestowed with a sacramental blessing that channelled erotic passions into courtship, chivalry and marriage. And we can all remember repentance and forgiveness between lovers or spouses reaching heights that approach Heaven’s door itself. And perhaps the erotic passions that follow forgiveness!

Then there is the love between friends or brothers which the Greeks termed “philia” (whence our English word, “filial”). Platonic love, which is perhaps to be regarded as the highest form of philia, was highly regarded by the Greeks - and of course, by Plato himself. And who cannot recall how repentance and forgiveness between brothers, sisters, or friends, or between child and parent, is a true gift from Heaven that sets both forgiver and forgiven free?

The love that we would associate with the innocence of childhood, between children - well, the Greeks had a word for that too, “ludus.” In our fallen world, children too can be cruel to each other and to adults and animals - but it is beautiful to behold a child who repents, or forgives. The child’s forgiveness is quick, complete, precious, transparent, simple - so precious indeed that Jesus must have been thinking also of the child’s ability to forgive when he proclaimed that, “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

And then, there is the greatest love of all, the love that the Greeks called “agape” love - the love that flows from God the Father Himself. One essential quality of this love is that it is self-sacrificing; another quality is that it is unconditional and expansive. It awaits a response in repentance and remorse, but it does not force repentance - and loves us regardless. It is the love that the Scottish poet George Matheson wrote about in the beautiful hymn:

“O love that will not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in thee.”

It was agape, unconditional love that took Jesus, the Son of God, to the Cross of Calvary. And the same, unconditional love that pleaded, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”