I was about to drive home on my motorbike today when I realised I had a flat tyre. I therefore went to the local puncture repair shop (you see them every couple of hundred metres here in India) and asked the man there to fix it for me. This usually costs about 15 pence. He removed the tube, and showed me how the tube was split at the valve, and I would therefore need a new tube, at around £2. Sure I said. However he then showed me that there was also a nail through the tyre, and a second hole in the tube.
this made me highly suspicious. Two simultaneous problems concurrently causing a flat tyre - hmmm...unlikely. I picked up my old tube, and looked at the hole near the valve, which now looked to me decidedly like a knife incision. then on closer inspection of the shop, i realised that the heater for rubberising the glue they use for puncture repairs was in pieces on the bench inside. At this stage I realised that he had never been able to fix my puncture.
I therefore went on (to his surprise) to explain my findings to him in pretty passable Hindi, and proceeded to tell him that God was watching everything! He looked sheepish. I remained calm though, and paid him and left.
As I drove down the road, I was musing about the fact that God was watching everything the lad had done, and would hold him accountable. Suddenly the thought of Christ hanging from the cross with crowds around his feet mocking him came to me, and those words - "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do".
What struck me was not God's forgiveness. We all know God is willing to forgive those who ask him! What struck me was the second part of the sentence - "for they know not what they do".
Arguably in the history of mankind there has never ben a greater injustice than Christ's crucifiction. Without a doubt the perpetrators were not repentant (as they mocked him) but this didn't matter to Christ.
What did strike me, was that Christ forgave these unrepentant sinners. Not because they acknowledged that he was the Christ. Not because they were repentant. Not because they went to Church, or took communion, or because they were good, or loving, or religious.
He forgave them because they did not know what they were doing.
Is ignorance an excuse then? Maybe. What did the man fixing my puncture think about ripping me off? Did he think
"here is a poor soul who I'll take advantage of"?
Just maybe he thought
" I haven't been able to make a living for several days, because my equipment is broken. I am hungry, my mother is sick and in hospital, my son is thin and hasn't had a proper meal for days. My wife deserves better".
Maybe he thought
"Here's a rich foreigner, he won't miss a couple of quid, perhaps if I just damage his valve he will buy a new tyre, and I'll be able to get my puncrure repairing machine fixed and start to make a living again".
As I drove along on my bike, I prayed a short prayer
"father forgive him, for he knows not what he is doing"
Immediately I felt better. My petty anger and resentment left me. I felt lighter. I absent-mindedly realised that wrecking my tubing wasn't going to be a stumbling block to that young man getting into heaven.
Another verse came to mind"If you forgive their sins, they are forgiven. If you retain their sins they are retained"
Next I had to say a wee prayer for myself.
"Father forgive me for all the times that I have harboured an unforgiving heart towards others. Father forgive me for all the times I have retained another man's sins. Father forgive me, for I knew not what I was doing..."
How many people really realise "what they are doing"? How many people really realise the importance of their minute every day actions? How many people are philosophers? How many Indian peasants struggling to survive understand the complexities of God? Of the trinity? Of Christ's substitution for us on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins?
Not many? None? And nor do I. Or maybe I'm just beginning to...
"How great the fathers love for us..."
"...Father forgive them, for they know not what they do..."
2 comments:
interesting. I have a similar forgiveness need. Our dentist quoted us for 4 mini-fillings in 4 teeth. Then he did the job, but did 6 filling in 4 teeth. It might have been necessary, but he never discussed the reasons for or the extra cost involved in doing the extra fillings which was 50 quid ($100+) extra for EACH extra filling. Which just get a bill for $210 more than the original estimation. It's cost me sleep I was so ticked off. What's a guy to do? I've questioned the dentist but he's yet to respond.
forgive them lord for they know not what they do.
Perhaps it should be said for GW Bush, D. Cheney and D. Rumsfeld the chief architects of the Iraq war.
except perhaps that they DID know what they were doing; only in part I think. There was an element of naivety although they appear to have been warned. sheesh.
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