Forgiveness – A Wonder of His Love – by Greg Albrecht
Friend and Partner Letter from July 2025:
Of all the scenes I recall from “Forrest Gump” (one of the memorable movies I shall probably ever see), I will never forget the heartbreaking scene when Jenny, Forrest’s long-time girlfriend and finally, for a short time before she dies, his wife, returns home. She and Forrest are walking down a country road toward the house where Jenny lived when she was a little girl. When Jenny sees her old house it unleashes a tidal wave of toxic memories – a raging river of agonizing flashbacks, including the sexual abuse to which her father subjected her.
Jenny is overcome with rage and begins picking up and throwing all the rocks she can find at the house. Finally, exhausted by the release of the never-fully-addressed-anger that lurked deep in her memories, Jenny fell to the ground. Forrest had watched it all, bewildered, but he did what he felt Jenny needed most. He sat down with Jenny, as his voice-over announced what he was thinking, “Sometimes there just aren’t enough rocks.”
Jenny had no resources to deal with her unreconciled, unresolved, excruciating, soul-destroying anger – she had no spiritual empowerment to either accept God’s forgiveness or to pass it on to others. At that point she had lived an unrestrained, immoral life, seemingly self-medicating herself from the enormous pain and shame of the abuse she suffered. She had come home, dying of AIDS – she did not feel forgiven.
The movie was not based on following Christ, so Jenny’s spiritual needs remained in large part unaddressed. But beginning with this scene, as Jenny and Forrest spent more and more time together, she “came home” to her childhood friend Forrest, an imperfect person who had his own special needs, but someone who was accepting and forgiving, merciful and loving … someone who did not hold her past against her. In that way, we might say Forrest played a Christlike role in Jenny’s life, serving her with unconditional love.
After Jenny, the love of his life, died, the movie shows Forrest standing by her grave, which was under the old oak tree they had climbed as children. “Talking” to her, he tells her he bought the old house in which her father abused her as a child and had it bulldozed.
Apart from the love, mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation of God the fictious character of Jenny in “Forrest Gump” is everywoman and everyman. One cannot fully forgive until they experience and receive forgiveness, and then, one is empowered to forgive only to the degree that one knows and realizes they have been forgiven. One cannot pass on forgiveness to others unless one has first received it themselves.
Forgiveness is serious business. Jesus commands that we love our neighbors as we do ourselves. This command does not merely direct us to love easy-to-get-along-with neighbors, but cantankerous, disagreeable and even disgusting ones, who become, for one reason or another, our enemies. The love of God does not discriminate on the basis of how we feel about those we feel deserve his love, and those who do not. God’s love includes forgiveness – forgiveness is fundamental to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to the very nature of God, who is love.
You have no doubt heard the ironic wisdom of the observation, “Everyone thinks forgiveness is a great idea until they have something or someone to forgive.” We all love to receive forgiveness, when nothing is required on our part to admit that we need forgiveness (reconciliation). But giving forgiveness? Releasing another person from a debt we feel they owe us? That’s another matter. Forgiveness, in its ultimate spiritual sense, is essentially impossible for a human being.
The only way one might forgive as Jesus commands is to pass on his forgiveness God has already given. Having been forgiven by God, we are thankful for his love, mercy and forgiveness, and therefore we can do nothing other than to pass on his forgiveness to others, forgiving them as we have been forgiven.
One can’t forgive until one experiences and receives forgiveness, and then, one is empowered to forgive only to the degree that they realize and know they have been forgiven.
In spite of the rage and hatred that humanity poured out on Jesus, mocking, hating, torturing and then executing the sinless and unblemished Lamb of God, Jesus responded by saying “Father, forgive them.”
Jesus, the unblemished “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) absorbed, ingested and soaked up all evil, in himself, bearing the terrible totality of all lust, immorality, hatred, perversion, corruption and depravity, forgiving the horrific contempt and bitter venom heaped on him, opening his arms, quite literally, on his cross, in a welcoming embrace of everyone. Everyone. Good for evil. The love of God responded to human hate.
At this moment in time, all in the past who had ever sinned (which means everyone… see Romans 3:23) all who had shed innocent blood, maliciously murdering and abusing others, seemingly without a second thought – were forgiven. Everyone in the past was forgiven.
All who took part in carrying out his betrayal, arrest, trial, scourging and beatings… all who mocked him and those who impaled him on his cross – all of those involved in all aspects of his crucifixion were forgiven. All humanity alive at that time – everyone was forgiven.
All the future evil to be visited on humans by humans – the warfare and bloodshed, the tortures, the genocides, the slavery; rapists, murderers, perpetrators of sadistic debauchery, pedophiles who would ruining the lives of children … despots like Stalin, Lenin and Hitler who would bring about the deaths of tens of millions in the 20th century, with its two World Wars … all humans who would yet live, after the Cross of Christ, including you and me … ALL FORGIVEN. Everyone.
When Jesus said “Father, forgive them…” (Luke 23:34) we might be tempted to think that in his intense pain his emotions overcame him, and he didn’t really know what he was saying, because such a pronouncement seems improbable and impossible and not even just and fair. Everyone forgiven? That seems impossible – and it is impossible, apart from God! God alone can truly forgive everyone. That’s why it is so vital to the gospel that we know it was God on the cross – the Son of God – the God-man – the Creator of all that is, visible and invisible.
Jesus was dealing with the ugliness and brutality of sin. He was offering forgiveness and reconciliation because no one else could. No human had the power or authority to deal with all sin, past, present and future. But God did … and God forgave and reconciled all sin and all sinners – all of it and all of them.
All are forgiven, but not all will receive and accept his forgiveness. Jesus, God in the flesh, first forgave us on his cross. All are forgiven at that moment. But not all are reconciled into a vibrant, Christ-centered life because not all desire or accept his forgiveness.
It is difficult to admit that one needs forgiveness. In order for anyone to reach out to the forgiving hand of Jesus and accept the embrace of his outstretched arms on his cross, God must grant us the gift of repentance. Who wants to admit they need forgiveness?
God initiates a process, moving in our rebellious and recalcitrant hearts, offering us his gift of repentance. Then, when we admit our need and accept the gift of forgiveness he holds in his hands, we are reconciled to God. He does not force forgiveness and reconciliation on us – he offers it freely by his grace.
The entire process of forgiveness and reconciliation is wrapped up in God’s love, surrounded and encompassed by his grace. Forgiveness and reconciliation begin with God, continues being empowered by God, and ends with God. Nothing about ultimate, meaningful, forgiveness and reconciliation is possible apart from God.
Having been forgiven, as forgiven Christ-followers we can do nothing else but forgive others. To refuse to forgive others (this is not to say that our humanity may battle with Christ in us and make forgiveness of others a longer drawn-out process – sometimes one that takes many decades) means that Jesus does not dwell in us, and that therefore, we have never truly grasped the ultimate significance and meaning of forgiveness nor experienced it. Forgiveness is fundamental to the Jesus Way – forgiveness is a sign that Jesus lives in us and we in him.
Christ-followers are 1) forgiven by the grace of God and 2) forgive others by the grace of God. To refuse to forgive and ultimately be reconciled is to refuse to be loved by God and pass on that love to others.
This is not to say that forgiveness is a “walk in the park” or a “day at the beach” for Christ-followers, because we still live in this body of flesh, and this body of flesh is all about revenge, pay-back and retaliation. But as we live in him and he in us, the grace, mercy and love of God will eventually have its way with us and forgiveness will characterize our lives rather than revenge and punishment.
Forgiven by his grace, your brother in Christ,
Greg Albrecht
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