OPINION:
Last week, Cara Northington, the mother of one of the University of Idaho students murdered by Bryan Kohberger in 2022, made headline news — not because of her protests or her politics and not because of an understandable or perhaps expected hatred of the man who killed her daughter. Rather, it was for three simple words: I forgive you.
Here, in part, is what Mrs. Northington said at the sentencing of her daughter’s assailant.
“I [will] not let you rent space in my head anymore. … Jesus has allowed me to forgive you. … Forgiveness has released me from any and all evil you have inflicted on me and my family.”
And thus, a woman whom none of us had ever heard of before reminds the world that the only cure for all that ails us is found in the simple choice that each of us can make to forgive.
Christ himself highlights this imperative when he says, “If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
Why is this so important? Why does Jesus present forgiveness in such nonnegotiable terms?
First, it’s because we all need it. None of us is really any better than anyone else. “There is none righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10) and “Christ came to save sinners [of which you and I are] chief among them.” (1 Timothy 1:15) In other words, if we think we have the moral high ground to “cast the first stone,” we are “deceiving ourselves and making God out to be a liar.” (1 John 1:8,10)
Second, forgiveness is not only a biblical mandate but is also a prerequisite for human development. Psychology 101 teaches that those who refuse to forgive never mature. They become stuck in the past and never grow beyond the point in time when they were offended or hurt. They never move on. They never grow up. As a result, they become walking and talking caricatures of the immature emotions they have chosen to imbibe.
C.S. Lewis describes this in “The Great Divorce” when he writes of a woman who had grumbled for so long about things done to her decades earlier that she became little more than a “perpetual grumble.”
“The question is whether she is a grumbler, or only a grumble,” says Lewis. “[Is] there a real woman — even the least trace of one — still there inside the grumbling, [that] can be brought to life again?” He goes on, “It begins with a [sin], and yourself still distinct from it: perhaps criticizing it. [But], in a dark hour, [you choose to] embrace it. Ye can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the [sin], but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine.”
The key is this: Those who are desperate for mercy should be merciful to others. Those who need love should show love to all who are unloving. Those who want to stop hate must stop hating. And those who need forgiveness (and don’t we all?) must first forgive. If we fail to do so, our identity becomes indistinct from the dark brooding that takes over our souls. Mrs. Northington’s simple words from an Idaho courtroom remind us all that we can and must rise above our emotions of resentment and revenge. We don’t have to let our feelings control us. We don’t have to be enslaved by perpetual victimization and resentment. We do not have to be held in bondage by the sins of others and the sins we find in ourselves.
We can forgive. We can be forgiven. We can be saved!
Saved from anger. Saved from self-righteousness. Saved from ourselves.
Martin Luther once said, “For still our ancient foe, doth seek to work us woe; His craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal.”
John Newton later cried out, “There are two things I know: I am a great sinner, and Jesus is a great savior. … Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”
The cycle of “cruel hate” is broken only by grace: God’s toward you, and yours toward others. And grace is made real only through the act of forgiveness.
Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host. He is the author of “Not a Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery). He can be reached at epiper@dreverettpiper.com.
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