True Forgiveness
Sunday 20th August 2023
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors (Matthew 6:12, NIV).
Forgive as the Lord forgave you (Colossians 3:13, NIV)
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
True Forgiveness
In August 2016 a news story began trending in the United States under the heading: ‘A Blind Eye to Sex Abuse: How USA Gymnastics Failed to Report Cases.’ Reporters from the IndyStar newspaper had uncovered how The United States of America Gymnastics had been burying reports of sexual abuse by some of its coaches for many years.
One of the people reading the trending story that morning was Rachael Denhollander. It grabbed her attention because she had herself suffered sexual abuse as a young gymnast aged just fifteen – not at the hands of her coaches, but from one of the most respected team doctors in the US: Larry Nassar. Yet there was no mention of his name in any of the reporting.
Her remarkable memoir, What is a Girl Worth?, tells the story of how her tireless efforts, along with those of journalists, law enforcers and fellow victims, served to bring Nassar to trial and conviction. It turned out that he had been abusing hundreds of young women, some as young as six years old, for decades without detection. He is now serving concurrent sentences which mean he will not leave prison before he dies.
What is especially remarkable is the way Rachael Denhollander addressed Nassar himself in court at his final trial in January 2018, speaking for some forty minutes, and with such a clear understanding of what the Bible says about what true justice and true forgiveness look like:
“Larry, if you have read the Bible you carry, you know forgiveness does not come by doing good things, as if good deeds can erase what you have done. It comes through repentance, which requires facing and acknowledging the truth about what you have done in all of its utter depravity and horror. Without mitigation. Without excuse. Without acting as if good deeds can erase what you have seen in this courtroom today. The Bible you carry says it is better for a millstone to be thrown around your neck and you thrown into a lake than for you to make even one child stumble.
“…And you have damaged hundreds. The Bible you carry speaks of a final judgment where all of God’s wrath, in its eternal terror, is poured out on men like you. Should you ever reach the point of truly facing what you have done, the guilt will be crushing.
“…This is what makes the gospel of Christ so sweet. Because it extends grace and hope and mercy where none should be found.
“…I pray that you experience the soul-crushing weight of guilt so that you may someday experience true repentance and true forgiveness from God, which you need far more than forgiveness from me, though I extend that to you as well.”
She certainly didn’t pull her punches! She refused to minimise his sin or guilt. She refused to minimise God’s wrath and judgment. And in doing so she maximised God’s grace and forgiveness. How easily we minimise our sin and God’s judgment, and with it our forgiveness.
Father, show us the true ugliness of our sin and the true horror of your judgment, so that we may know the true beauty of your forgiveness. Amen.
Yours warmly, in Christ,
Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister)