I was recently struggling to forgive someone who had deeply offended me. In my heart, I truly believed I’d forgiven this person. But, as I remembered the offense and began to wallow in self-pity, I started to feel angry. Then God reminded me of a great sermon I heard by Howie Malone. Pastor Howie, who has an extraordinary gift for using word pictures to cement important Biblical truths, was teaching about forgiveness. As he explained how important it is to be in the habit of burying offenses, he said:
“If your pet died, you wouldn’t leave it above ground to decompose. You’d put it in a box and bury it in the backyard. You would not dig it up and cuddle with the corpse just because you missed poor Fido. Of course, you wouldn’t! Well, when someone offends you, it’s much healthier to bury it. Place that offense in a mental box and bury it. Then, when you have future engagements with the offender, learn to resist the temptation to go out to the backyard and dig-up that rotten offense. You buried it for a really good reason—it’s unhealthy to play with corpses—right?”
But it’s really, really hard for us to keep those offenses buried—isn’t it?
Especially if you see that person every day. We are so tempted to run out and dig up that offense, aren’t we? But that offense is rotten and if we hold it close, it will contaminate our heart.
Like a rotten apple—bitterness contaminates everything it touches.
My friend, sometimes offenses are easy to forgive because we recognize that the offender is immature. But, there are times when the offense is so serious and our heart is so hurt that the offense cuts like a knife and we seem helpless to forgive. These are deadly offenses and we need to be very serious about burying them. But many times, we need our Heavenly Father to pick up the shovel for us. That’s okay. God understands our pain. He WILL intervene and He WILL help us bury that offense. BUT—He will NOT help us dig it back up—that’s all on us.
This week, as we remember the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, we do ourselves a great service to enter into the mindset of Christ as He prepared to suffer and die for the sins of the entire human race. He knew all of our rotten sin before He even went into hell for us. God’s mercy went ahead of His suffering. When we accept His gift of salvation, He buries our offenses in a grave of steel no human or enemy can uncover.
“But he was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:5-6
“For I passed on to you what I received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.” 1 Corinthians 15:3-4
As Jesus was suffering on the cross and the Roman soldiers were gambling for His clothes, He prayed: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” (Luke 23:34) His forgiveness of our sin enables us to also call on the Father to help us forgive others. In His greatest time of suffering, our sweet Savior—100% human, yet 100% God—engaged His Father’s power to forgive.
My friend, we will never have to suffer like Jesus did. We will never be abandoned like He was. We have never been sinned against like we have sinned against Him. His sacrifice for our sin gave us the promise of eternity in His sweet presence. Psalms 103:12 proclaims that God has forgiven us “as far as the east is from the west.” We have been given 4 trillion worth of forgiveness. We have a lot to give away. Our life is far too precious to be spent digging up stinking corpses when God has buried all of ours.
