Marriage from a ‘Christ Perspective’ - Part 3

(Matt. 18: 32-33) – [Parable of the Unforgiving Servant] “You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?”

Jesus paid a debt that He didn’t owe, for a debt we could not pay. In the parable of the Unforgiving Servant, we see a person who owed a debt of 200 Talents to his master and his time to pay had come due. Each Talent is estimated at being worth 20 years of a person’s daily wage. So, the servant owed 4000 years’ worth of his wages. Basically, a debt he would never be able to pay though he asked his Master to be patient and that he had plans to pay it back. In this extreme parable, Jesus tries to get us to see how generous His Father will be in not only paying our life debt but doing it at the expense of His own beloved son. All He asks is for us to forgive others the same way.

Every day, I’m amazed at the lack of mercy that is all around us in society today. Everyone is looking for someone else to blame. But what saddens me even more is how much I see this same lack of forgiveness between spouses. Especially, when the offender is remorseful and attempting to make things better. And, although, I truly understand that some of the offenses are very egregious, none of them measure up to our rejection of God through crucifying His son by our sinfulness, every day. Yet, Christ paid our debt and asks us to do the same. Forgiveness is not about forgetting, or immediate trust, or even about acceptance of their actions, but rather it is about letting go of the anger that holds us bound and bitter. Then it makes trust viable in time.

As spouses, we need to be quick to recognize our mistakes and apologize for them, rather than always looking for a scapegoat in our spouse or our children. We need to, in turn, forgive them when they too make mistakes and seek healing rather than using their mistakes to punish them over and over again. If we truly learn from our mistakes and work to make changes in our lives, these old patterns will soon become a distant memory.     

ACTION STEP: This week, seek to forgive any chance you can. When you find it hard, look at a crucifix and ask for God’s grace to do so.