Jewish philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, argues that “forgiveness acts upon the past, somehow repeats the event, purifying it.”
I haven’t finished reading through all that Levinas has to say about forgiveness. But from a Christian and – for that matter – a Jewish perspective, it can be argued that the purification he describes is possible only in God.
It is God alone who holds the past. It is God alone who can heal the past.
It is God alone who knows the transgressor and the victim. It is God alone who knows the inner nature of the violence done and the wound inflicted.
Conversely, one might argue that vengeance not only leaves the past unhealed, it propels the harm done into the future. As it does, the darkness invoked is spread. The number of victims grows. The possibility of healing is diminished. And with it, the temptation to despair grows.
In our conversations about forgiveness in the church, we often fail to grapple with the subject of vengeance. We should.
The impulse is as old as Cain and Abel. It figures prominently in the literature of the past – Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, chief among them. And it is a prominent theme in modern dramas – most recently, Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone. But these are simply windows into a darkness that is much more powerfully seductive.
Without oversimplifying the events in Madison and elsewhere, clearly the spiritual choice between forgiveness and vengeance lies beneath the choices that many murderers make. And as belief in God diminishes – never mind God’s capacity to heal the past – so, too, does our capacity for forgiveness. When that happens the only thing that grows is our enslavement to the darkness in our own hearts.
Gracious and loving God, when violence finds its way into our schools and children perish at the hand of still other children, we are torn and grieved. We are torn and grieved by the extent to which the darkness has found its way into our hearts, the extent to which it has touched the lives of our children, the extent to which it has ravaged our schools and our communities. Heal our hearts, our families, our communities. Vanquish the violence that begets violence. Strengthen our efforts to secure the future of our children and the safety of our communities. Guard the hearts of the families and first responders who grieve this night. Receive those who have died into light perpetual. Speed healing to the wounded. And all for your name’s sake. Amen.