Why forgive? Why should I let somebody off the hook who has done me harm in the past? People today are usually slow to forgive, thinking they have a right to their anger (which we do), but not thinking of the harm holding onto anger does to themselves. Long ago the Buddha put it this way, "Hanging onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at somebody else. You are the one who gets burned."

When we hold onto to anger, all sorts of bad things can happen to us. If you have held onto a resentment for any length of time a simple demonstration will make this point clear. Think of somebody whom you have not yet completely forgiven who has caused you harm in the past. Now, what do you notice about yourself and the way you are feeling? Has you face turned red yet? Do you feel your blood pressure going up? Any signs of stomach upset? If you are thinking about this close to bedtime, do you have trouble going to sleep afterwards? Do you feel like crying, pounding a wall, or going out for a drink? These and other things are warning signs that not forgiving another person for the harm they have done to you in the past is screwing up your present moment. Also notice that holding onto the anger is not causing these things to happen to the person you are holding the anger against; rather they are happening to you.

Forgiveness clears the way for us to get on with our lives. If we are holding onto anger and resentments, we are hanging onto the past, and a very nasty part of our past. Focusing on the past obscures our view of the present. Rather than going ahead with our lives, we are stuck looking into the rearview mirror as it were (and a cracked rearview mirror at that). How can we move forward when we spend too much time looking behind? We can not. We must eventually see the wisdom in leaving the past behind, for ourselves and others, so we can see the present for what it is, and move ahead into the future. Forgiveness makes this possible.

Most Christians today believe they do not have to forgive anyone. They tend to believe that if they accept Jesus as their Lord ans Savior, then God will forgive them. But that is about as far as forgiveness goes for many of them. Is this what Jesus taught? A simple look at the Gospel of Matthew will show that it is not.

In Matthew 6: 14-15 Jesus makes this clear. "For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." (NRSV) Here Jesus teaches a very simple law of Karma: You reap what you sow; or, what goes around comes around. As we forgive others, so will God forgive us. In other parts of Matthew Jesus again points out the urgency in forgiving the sins of others. "When you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift at the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift." (Matthew 5: 23-24, NRSV). The Christians of the 1st century took this teaching seriously. There is a practice recorded in the Didache (Teaching of the Apostles) which reads, "On the Lord's Day assemble in common to break bread and offer thanks; but first confess your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure. However nobody who is quarreling with their brother may join your meeting until they are reconciled; your sacrifice must not be defiled." (Didache 14: 1-2) This should make it abundantly clear that forgiveness is not just something the first followers of Jesus believed in; it is something they practiced and taught others to do as well.

Today in churches and even in some pop psychology circles forgiveness is taught as being optional. Nothing could be more harmful or further from the truth! Forgiveness is essential to the life of a healthy human being. People working in recovery groups have noticed that when alcoholics practice forgiveness, their chances of complete recovery dramatically improve. But if they hold onto resentments, it is usually only a matter of time before their next drink. Even non-alcoholics notice a life improvement when they learn to forgive. They gain the ability to see life more clearly and live life more fully. In some people who begin to practice forgiveness for the first times some amazing physical changes are noticed as well. High blood pressure may stabilize; insomnia may disappear and stomach ulcers may heal of their own accord. When these changes are noticed in ordinary human beings who practice forgiveness for the first time in their lives, the "why" of forgiveness becomes obvious; we do this to stop punishing ourselves!

There is an old saying, "Time heals all wounds." When we forgive this saying is proven to be true. However there is an opposite yet just as true saying, "Time wounds all heels." When we refuse to forgive others and ourselves, this saying is borne out in spades.

This all is not to say that we should forget the harm that others have done to us and to set ourselves up to being hurt all over again. John F. Kennedy once said, "Forgive the sins of others, but remember their names." In other words we should forgive the trespass, but remember and respect the weakness in the other person (and in ourself) which made the trespass possible in the first place. If your husband is an alcoholic who has beaten you and your children while drinking; forgive the trespass, but take measures to protect yourself and others from any further abuse, even to the point of leaving the home and seeking legal recourse. If somebody has cheated you out of a large sum of money, again forgive the trespass, but be cautious about trusting your money with that person again, and if appropriate, file criminal charges. Yet we should always leave the door open to repentance and transformation! We never punish an evil doer out of a sense of revenge. Rather we do so out of love hoping the wrong-doer will learn from their mistakes and change, and also remembering the times in the past in which we ourselves had been the evil-doer. Remember too that people do change and grow over time. An alcoholic who once did terrible things to themselves and others may become an outstanding citizen and parent once they seek help and put their drinking days behind them. Likewise common thieves can become trustworthy once more when they truly learn the errors of their ways and seek to move forward as more Godly persons. Forgiveness leaves the door open to such transformation. A lack of forgiveness tries to shut this door tight.

Great spiritual masters such as Jesus, the Buddha, and others knew about the power of forgiveness and transformation. They commonly associated with criminals and riff-raff that the normal religious people of their time would avoid. And in the literature of the great world religions, we see accounts of people who were once thought to be completely lost being redeemed; thieves becoming great teachers and killers becoming saints. Redemption for anyone is possible. Let us never shut the door.