I’ve been thinking a lot about forgiveness these days. I wish I can say it began a few weeks ago when I saw this beautiful gesture of forgiveness displayed by the House of Peace Mosque in Connecticut, which was reminiscent of this inscrutable forgiveness extended to Dylann Roof by Emanuel Church in South Carolina. No, instead my recent fixation on the subject of forgiveness started a few weeks ago when I got in my car for a long drive, pulled up my phone and said, “Siri, play Hamilton.” In her digitized British accent (my Siri speaks the king’s) she replied: “OK, here’s Hamilton, Original Broadway Cast.” *The phenomenal musical by Lin Manuel Miranda recently received a historical 16 Tony Award nominations.
As to be expected, I was impressed and ultimately won over by Hamilton’s subversive retelling of the forging of America set to anachronistic rap battles. I, however, did not expect to be profoundly moved by the devastating portrait of forgiveness embodied in Eliza Hamilton, wife of the eponymous Alexander. Eliza is confronted with the “unimaginable” decision to forgive her philandering husband’s acts of adultery and betrayal. “Unimaginable” because the audience still feels the heat of the incendiary curse she pronounced on her husband only moments prior: “You forfeit all rights to my heart / you forfeit the place in our bed … I hope that you burn.” And yet by the emotional climax of the musical, we find this moment of profound release and beauty:
There are moments that the words don’t reach
There is a grace too powerful to name
We push away what we can never understand
We push away the unimaginable
They are standing in the garden
Alexander by Eliza’s side
She takes his hand[ELIZA]
It’s quiet uptown[COMPANY (EXCEPT HAMILTON AND ELIZA)]
Forgiveness. Can you imagine? Forgiveness. Can you imagine?
We are never told about Eliza’s thought process in moving from anger to forgiveness (nor would explanations help). Only that Eliza forgives. Can you imagine?
The entire sequence is worth a listen (beginning from Burn). The moment comes in It’s Quiet Uptown http://genius.com/Lin-manuel-miranda-its-quiet-uptown-lyrics. The warnings the website gives bear wisdom: the song is deadly; don’t listen in public if you can avoid it.
Christians operate on the foundational assumption that the God of the Bible is a God of forgiveness. And yet forgiveness persists as tricky territory for many Christians, particularly those who struggle with habitual patterns of sin and repentance. In Hamilton, while we can wonder at Eliza’s capacity to forgive, we do not, of course, expect her to continue to freely forgive every other future act of betrayal. Do we imagine God to be different? Among the Christians I speak to on this topic, some eventually have themselves convinced that they are beyond grace, having wronged their forgiver one too many times. Forgiveness, then, is worth reflecting on and carefully thinking through.
Clarifying Our Understanding of Sin and Forgiveness
The Christian notion of forgiveness is not based on God’s leniency to “let it slide.” Nor can the validity of forgiveness depend on our ability to self-report every occurrence (we indeed would need a Purgatory if we hold this view of forgiveness). We are always worse than we think we are. None of this suggests we give up confession and repentance as a practice, but it is to suggest we focus less on cleaning up our rap sheet and more on our maturity as Christians.
Forgiveness Opens the Path to Freedom and Maturity
Sin is not simply infraction; it is a power that enslaves (Rom 6.15-16). Sin creates entanglements (both within and in our relationships without) and the process of freedom cannot be founded on simple appeals to sanction and permissiveness. The goal, we should remember, is not merely increasing the capacity towards self-improvement. Forgiveness, rather, makes possible the path to life, freedom from sin’s entanglements, and maturity towards Christ. What matters now is realizing his grace in our life. Michael Welker is helpful here: “The forgiveness of sins enables not only a ‘new beginning,’ but the production of new structural patterns of life.” (from God the Spirit). This coincides well with what John Barclay has labeled a “new habitus” of the believer who receives a new set of values and goals which “can only become effective in practice” in the community of believers. (from “The Christ-Gift and the Construction of a Christian Habitus“). Grace is no pushover; rather grace is a teacher leading us on the necessary path of life; not the path to attain life, but the path for all who are already alive in Christ through his Spirit (Rom 6.12-17; Titus 2.11-14).
What Language Shall I Borrow?
Christian forgiveness inevitably runs up against the elusive (uncomfortable?) subject of blood. Throughout Scripture, the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins is unquestionable; but its necessity and its precise function in atonement are never explicitly spelled out (leaving penal substitionary apologists to make the critical (though plausible) inferential leaps). Scripture simply says, “the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin (1 Jn 1.7).” Just why or how the blood works we are never expressly told (nor would explanations help). The blood of Jesus points to a sacrifice beyond matters of price and to a love beyond the limits of language, available to any and all who come to God through him (Heb 7.25). And here is perhaps the fitting place to end our reflection. Eliza’s forgiveness for Alexander holds deep power for me because it once again revives my own recognition of the unspeakable grace of God’s forgiveness — completely undeserved, freely given, and in every sense of the word, unimaginable.
For Further Reading: Anthony Bash, Forgiveness: A Theology (2015), and Calvin, Institutes, Book III, Chapter 3, Faith and Repentance.
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