The Lines We Hide Behind
The following is our email devotional you can subscribe to at www.askthequestion.ca. It will be followed up by a podcast teaching from this coming Sunday.
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Simon Wiesenthal was a young Jew imprisoned in a Nazi death camp during the Holocaust. One day, while on a work detail outside a hospital, he was asked to accompany a nurse to the side of a dying German SS officer. What happened next forms the basis of a book he wrote years after the fact entitled “The Sunflower”. For several hours that afternoon he sat and listened to the terrible confessions of the dying officer who then asked to be forgiven.
What would you have done?
Grace is something we know to be noble – but we also struggle to come to terms with it’s limits (if there are any). Are there situations which go beyond the limits of grace? Can we ever be in a situation where we need to forgive someone else more than we need to be forgiven, ourselves? Can grace ever be reckless? Can withholding grace ever be appropriate?
I guess it all depends on where you draw the line – and on which side of it you find yourself. So where do you draw the line? To go back to our original question, if you were Simon, what would you have done?
This Sunday I’d like to challenge some of your thinking about grace, forgiveness and where you draw that line. And I’ll also let you know what Simon chose to do...
Hope to see you there,
CSW
DON’T FORGET our new service time and location!
Simon Wiesenthal was a young Jew imprisoned in a Nazi death camp during the Holocaust. One day, while on a work detail outside a hospital, he was asked to accompany a nurse to the side of a dying German SS officer. What happened next forms the basis of a book he wrote years after the fact entitled “The Sunflower”. For several hours that afternoon he sat and listened to the terrible confessions of the dying officer who then asked to be forgiven.
What would you have done?
Grace is something we know to be noble – but we also struggle to come to terms with it’s limits (if there are any). Are there situations which go beyond the limits of grace? Can we ever be in a situation where we need to forgive someone else more than we need to be forgiven, ourselves? Can grace ever be reckless? Can withholding grace ever be appropriate?
I guess it all depends on where you draw the line – and on which side of it you find yourself. So where do you draw the line? To go back to our original question, if you were Simon, what would you have done?
This Sunday I’d like to challenge some of your thinking about grace, forgiveness and where you draw that line. And I’ll also let you know what Simon chose to do...
Hope to see you there,
CSW
posted by CSW at
1:01 PM
1 Comments:
Let me start with the question: "Can withholding grace ever be appropriate?"
The answer is, simply, "Yes".
Since grace is unmerited favour, then grace can only be given to someone who doesn't deserve it. Thus, choosing not to give it is indeed appropriate on the basis of justice.
But it's precisely because of this reason that when grace is given, it needs to be seen for the incredible gift that it is...and we need to embrace the One who has given it to us.
Far too often we see God's grace to us as something we've earned, something we've deserved. That's why it's hard to imaging being gracious to the SS Officer confessing to Simon. We rebel at the thought that he should be forgiven because we're convinced that he doesn't deserve grace, whereas we certainly do (so we say). But that very conclusion changes what we've received from grace to reward...and we're not talking about reward here.
Now, when Jesus says, "Freely you have received, freely give," I think he's specifically talking about grace. I suck, but God gave me his righteousness. I nailed him to the cross, but he's reserved a place for me in heaven. And though the SS Officer did terrible things, so have I.
Is it appropriate to withhold grace? Perhaps a better question should be: Why was I given grace? And if I have received grace, why shouldn't I give it?
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Derwyn, at 12:03 AM
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