“Peace be with you.”
Repentance and Forgiveness
Jesus
himself stood among the disciples and their companions and said to them,
"Peace be with you." They were startled and terrified, and thought
that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, "Why are you frightened,
and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that
it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as
you see that I have." And when he had said this, he showed them his hands
and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he
said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece
of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.
Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you-- that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things."
Luke 24:36b-48
Appearance
While the Apostles are at Table
DUCCIO,
di Buoninsegna
Panel
from the Maesta Altarpiece of Sienna
(see
last week’s on the web site)
http://www.dotjack.com/opq.htm
1308-1311
Museo
dell’Opera del Duomo
Sienna
Italy
The
Appearance at Table alludes to the story in Luke, where Jesus appears before
the disciples and, to dispel all their doubts, eats with them. The detail
of the fish painted on the plates repeats the gospel text to the letter.
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/d/duccio/maesta/crown_v/cro_v_g.html
Biography of Duccio di Buoninsegna
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/bio/d/duccio/biograph.html
The weak can never forgive.
Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
~
Mahatma Gandhi
The moments when we meet and reckon with contradictions
are turning points where we
either enter or evade the mystery of God.
~
Parker Palmer
Nancy
Priest and I thoroughly enjoyed “The 12”
at
the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.
"This brand
new rock musical follows the twelve disciples as they wrestle with fear,
uncertainty,
anger and love in the days following their Teacher’s death.”
WOW!!!
The
opening set.
http://www.denvercenter.org/shows/specific-series/Get?Id=984ad877-cdec-68a4-921b-ff0e004d5814
While
we are battling snow in the Rockies, B-Brother Jack sent this from Connecticut.
He wrote, “The crocuses popped up yesterday and I just
took this picture. This guy is really doing his duty!”
Meanwhile, at home in Evergreen:
“Oh, no! Two feet+ of snow in April.
I was just searching for a
nice place to give birth to my little baby elk.”
Forgiveness does not change the past,
but it does enlarge the future.
~
Paul Boese *
April 19, 2015 Third Sunday of
Easter
* There are many similar quotes by others.
Agnus Day, by
James Wetzstein
Agnus Day appears with the permission
of www.agnusday.org
"After resurrection, Jesus came through a
door and into a locked room with fearful disciples and showed them his scars. He
breathed on them the Holy Spirit and gave them the tool of forgiveness. By
trusting in him, we hold the key that unlocks the door of our hearts and those
of others. Through his forgiveness and healing, people are set free, lives are
changed, and we are reconciled.
The late Lewis Smedes wrote a powerful
book entitled Forgiveness: Healing the Hurt We Don’t Deserve. He shares several principles about
forgiveness. I want to share them with you.”
The Art of Forgiveness … by Lewis Smedes
The most creative power given to the human spirit the power to heal the wounds of a past it cannot change.
We do our forgiving alone inside our hearts and minds: what happens to the people we forgive depends on them
The first person to benefit from forgiving is the one who does it.
Forgiving happens in three stages: We rediscover the humanity of the person who wronged us, we surrender our right to get even, and we wish that person well.
We forgive people only for what they do, never for what they are.
We forgive people only for wounding and wronging us; we do not forgive people for things we do not blame them for.
We cannot forgive a wrong unless we first blame the person who wronged us.
Forgiving is a journey; the deeper the wound, the longer the journey.
Forgiving does not require us to reunite with the person who broke our trust.
We do not forgive because we are supposed to; we forgive when we are ready to be healed.
Waiting for someone to repent before we forgive is to surrender our future to the person who wronged us.
Forgiving is not a way to avoid pain but to heal pain. Forgiving is done best when it is done intolerantly.
Forgiving someone who breaks a trust does not mean that we give him his job back.
Forgiving is the only way to be fair to ourselves.
Forgivers are not doormats; to forgive a person is not a signal that we are willing to put up with what he does.
We do not excuse the person we forgive; we blame the person we forgive.
Forgiving is essential; talking about it is optional.
When we forgive, we set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner we set free is us.
When we forgive we walk in stride with the forgiving God.
Acts 3:12-19
Psalm 4
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24: 36b-48
…