Forgiveness and Retribution
Readers Discretion Advised: Graphic Scenes
A few weeks ago I watched a short video clip. It was a heart wrenching recording of a pastor who had just been attacked by Fulani Herdsmen in a Nigerian village. They had burnt down houses, cars, everything in sight. The pastor narrated a harrowing story where gun totting marauders ambushed the village in the middle of the night. With the element of surprise, they were able to set houses on fire and gun down those trying to escape. Many women, in trying to shield their children were literally cut down with machetes. Old men that couldn’t run fast enough were slaughtered. Some fathers tried to protect their families but to their peril; they paid the ultimate price. There was a picture of a young boy, maybe about 10 years old carrying his little brother on his back. Both had tears running down their faces. They were the sole survivors of their family.
The response of the pastor was what caught my attention. In tears, he prayed on behalf of the traumatised village. He offered the offenders love and forgiveness. On his knees he cried out to God asking Him for mercy and for deliverance because they had nowhere to run to. Not once did he allow the pain in his heart turn into a venom that could push him into seeking retribution.
What really is forgiveness? Who benefits from it? Why would a whole community choose to forgive their attackers? Killers that had shown no mercy nor remorse.
In the same breath, why would a mother choose to forgive the violent rapist that murdered her daughter and granddaughter? This is another pitiable story I watched on social media. The young man (let’s call him Andy) had grown up in an abusive home. He was raised by his stepfather who was a strict disciplinarian. He would beat him with extension cords and pieces of wood and with every beating, would tell him “I did it because I love you. It hurt me more than it hurt you son”. This communicated a wrong message about the meaning of love to him. For many years, he thought love was supposed to hurt. He therefore hurt everyone that he loved because he measured love by how much pain a person was willing to take from him. It wasn’t until he ended up in prison, a place devoid of love that he finally started to have some understanding. That tutelage came from the unlikeliest of persons.
For the first time in his life, Andy met someone (Gloria) who gave him unconditional love. Someone who saw beyond his incarceration for the worst type of crime; murdering a child. He had murdered both Gloria’s daughter and granddaughter. In his own words he said “by all rights she should have hated me but she didn’t. Through the journey we took, she taught me what love was and what it wasn’t”. Andy couldn’t love people because he hadn’t known what love was. You can’t give what you don’t have.
How could this mother forgive the vicious murderer of her daughter and granddaughter? Where did she get the strength to rise above the pain and hurt? How was she able to relate to Andy?
Life experiences can be regarded as a normal sculpting process. These could either “break” or “make” a man. We are all moulded by the experiences we go through in life. This is a key realisation one must come to in order to accommodate other people’s weaknesses and short comings. It is also a true key to forgiveness.
Gloria didn’t see Andy merely as the murderer he was. She saw him as the victim of his upbringing. She saw a damaged man that needed fixing. She saw a man who needed re-education from all the poison that had been embedded in his system. She also knew the basic tool to use was love. No one can resist genuine love. Love is not just an emotional feeling. It is something you choose to do. It can be costly and painful. Sometimes love takes time to be received and reciprocated. One thing is however sure, love can crack the hardest of hearts when applied consistently and truly. We all want to be loved.
Through these stories, we can infer that forgiveness is usually rooted in love. Love could be the catharsis for releasing the pain of grief and loss. The Bible summarises it beautifully in 1 Corinthians 13. by saying;
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
The person who chooses to forgive would normally not do it for the benefit of the offender, but for himself. Real forgiveness is when it can be offered even when the offender is not sorry; when the offender has not apologised. To remain bitter and angry can be likened to someone drinking poison and hoping the other person would die. Holding on to the anger, pain and bitterness does more harm than good. We can’t wait for people to earn forgiveness before it is offered. It is however comforting when an offender is able to show remorse and genuinely apologise for whatever they have done. It gives some sense of closure when that conversation can take place between the parties.
One question the aggrieved always asks is “why?” Why did you do it? what were you thinking? What propelled you? To get honest responses to these questions might start a process of healing and of closure for the victim. It could go either of two ways though. For some victims, there is nothing the offender would say that could help the situation. For them, there must be retribution to get closure; the harder the better. They would normally say (as I see on TV crime channels), giving the death sentence would be too easy, they would prefer for them to suffer in prison for life.
Another incident I witnessed on social media that left me speechless happened somewhere in the middle east. This was sometime in 2016. It was the story of a teenage boy caught in a homosexual act. The penalty for that crime was death. This was not the normal capital punishment that would be imposed by a legal judicial system. This was jungle justice. I watched as the young man was marched by a mob of men to the roof top of a high-rise building. His eyes were blindfolded, and his arms tied behind his back. He was being marched to the edge so he could be dropped several floors to his death. I couldn’t watch this act of barbaric jungle justice. Just knowing what was going to happen left me completely distraught. I imagined the terror this young man must have been going through, knowing it was just moments to his death. A death by dropping about ten floors to a hard concrete. Even writing about it today still haunts me.
I imagined his fear, his helplessness, his regrets, words still unsaid, his loneliness, images of his mother, his father, the family he would be leaving behind. I could only but imagine. I tried to run a mental image of what his life must have looked like. He must have known that being gay was a crime punishable by death in that country. He must have known about others that had lost their lives for this act. Even with all that knowledge, he couldn’t help himself. He must have tried desperately to conquer his urges but failed. An uphill battle that eventually cost him his life. How did his mother cope with this loss?
What upset me most about this episode was the frenzy of the crowd. They seemed to be so proud and excited about what they were going to do. There was no show of mercy. There was almost an indignation at him for daring to do what he did. It was sad. He was only a teenager. I am not gay and don’t know what its like to be gay but I know that gay people could be the nicest people ever. For most of them, they would have gone through life being rejected and despised for something they seemed to have no control over. They would have hidden in the closet for so long wishing they could be understood and accepted. My heart always aches for them. I always wish for a chance to be friends with gay people simply because of how they are largely treated. They need to be loved, full stop.
In my opinion, civilisation does require forgiveness. We have hurt each other so much and keep hurting each other in so many ways. Generally we treat as outcasts those we deem ‘different’ from us, emphasising things that separate us rather than unite us. These could be colour, race, orientation etc. There are different people groups that are hurt, bitter and almost crippled by the memory of their painful History. The problem is, if they are not able to let go of the past, then they can’t move forward in a healthy way. They are likely to remain crippled with bias, hate and bitterness. It takes a greater power to be able to rise above such. It takes an inner supernatural working within the heart to enable a wounded man forgive his offender even without being asked.
There is no act that is unforgivable. As human beings, we must realise our limitations and infallibility. As hard as we try, we often find that the good we want to do, we are unable to. The things that we despise and hate doing is what we eventually do. How can a man break free from this cycle? How can the paedophile stop being a paedophile? How can a drug junkie clean up his life? How can a child murderer forgive himself and carry on with life?
Forgiveness however does not translate into an automatic cancellation of consequences. Most times, although forgiveness might be offered and accepted, there would still be repercussions. There might still be a price to be paid by somebody. This perfectly explains the idea of a “scape goat”, the work of grace through Jesus Christ. In any civilized society, when the law is broken, there would be consequences for the guilty. It is the same with mankind and God. He acknowledges that man is weak and unable to live a perfect sinless life. He recognises that our human nature is a fallen nature, naturally selfish. It loves to do what is not right, to push the boundaries. That’s why an abusive husband would continually bash his wife, unable to help himself despite being remorseful. A paedophile could hate himself for always desiring a child and yet is unable to help himself. He would go to all lengths to cover his tracks but must still have his “fix” of a child. He is powerless before this monster within him. These could be respectable men and women within the society. For many, it’s a situation they find too shameful and distressing to talk about. These acts would normally happen in darkness, behind closed doors. Sometimes amidst cries of “who can help me?” If only they could turn to the “Scapegoat” who would gladly take their shame and give them power to live a new life!
The dictionary describes a scapegoat as a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency. God offers Jesus as our “scape goat”.
It says in John 3:16-17
16“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him”
He says to mankind, “if only you would recognise your failures, your sins, your weaknesses, your shame. If only you would allow me to help you. If only you would believe in me and trust me. If only you would accept my offer of a way out. If only you could accept the gift of Jesus. He died on the cross in your stead so that you could live. He died and took your punishment so you could be set free. He died in your stead so he could take your sin, your struggles, your shame and give you a new life. All you need to do is to believe in this offer and ask Jesus to come and save you”. That is the reality of the Jesus as the Scapegoat for all of humanity; the ultimate act of forgiveness.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog. kindly leave a comment below to let me know what you think.