Deep Java 3

Recently I had one of those deep conversations in which coffee was on the table. It was a pastoral conversation. Like Andree, she is a beautiful woman as well, but today the redness of weeping mars her blue eyes and milky complexion. She has been wounded deeply by the best friend she has ever known. Deception. Betrayal. She is out for justice. The tears she cries are mixed with rage and pain. The friend has confessed and repented. She knows what she has to do, but the doing of it escapes her. “I’ve read the Bible, I know what it says. ‘Forgive as you have been forgiven.’ And I know I have been forgiven. I love my friend and want desperately to forgive, but practically, so much is in the way. I want him to hurt like I hurt, and I just don’t think that he does. I understand confession and repentance, but I want there to be consequences. I want him to feel great pain before I forgive”, she nearly chuckled at the closing remark. I sipped my coffee. She stared at hers.

As she stalls a moment, I think back to my conversations with Andree, years earlier, about the sovereignty of God in a shattered and scattered world. Then she spoke. “I just don’t think he has suffered enough. Is that it? Does he go back to normal just like that? There are no consequences-- just like a man to want it fixed and done with-- no consequences.” “Oh but there are”, I said. She doesn’t see it-- “Where? Show me because I don‘t see them.” I sipped again (for courage maybe?) then spoke. “Do you remember all of those pictures of Jesus on the cross? All the images of the crown of thorns? Remember what you saw in movies about his crucifixion? Do you really believe that happened?” She fumbled with her sweater, nodding affirmatively to the inquisition. “Of course”, she replied flatly. I paused letting her connect the logic. “It’s hard putting the crucifixion in such an immediate crisis, isn’t it? And yet, it is our immediate crises that required such a horrible consequence. As long as God allows this world to turn, people will live with the need for the cross of Jesus. You have now experienced this provision as acutely as an attack of appendicitis.”

It was a watershed moment for her. Finally-- practical theology in the present tense. The cup holding her latte finally reached her lips. It was an image of drinking more than just a caffeinated beverage. The gateway from her mind to her heart had been opened. Her soul was flooded with what a personal relationship with God looks like—vividly, and at great cost.
“I feel like the ball is in my court and it’s my move", she said. "But I don’t want to move right now. I’m in shock, and so vulnerable. Vulnerable to the trust I must place in Christ to help me apply a work he completed." I told her that I understood.

Embracing the truth of a thing doesn't mean that there is instant adjustments or applications. Forgiveness is a very difficult destination, but it's the difficulty that makes it great. Much like the liquid result which finally finds its way into the cardboard cups we hold, the refinement of forgiveness is a tedious process, attained by thorough grinding and extreme heat. She's enduring the process to attain the result. I am very confident of her commitment to do so. "He who is forgiven much, loves much." Such is the promise to which she clings.