Madoff and Forgiveness

I was completely absorbed into the Bernie Madoff documentary this past week on ABC. It is just intriguing to me how this man got so many people to invest in him over such a long period of time. He did it because he played hard to get and he had the trust of people. So few people suspected what was going on. And then it came crashing down.

After the documentary aired, they interviewed some of the people that had lost money and some much of their life savings. They also interviewed Stephanie Madoff, Mark Madoff's wife and daughter-in-law of Bernie. Two years after the scheme broke, Mark Madoff committed suicide. Stephanie Madoff told of her hate for Bernie Madoff and said she would "spit in his face".

It is so easy to play armchair quarterback and dismiss the reactions of people who placed their trust in a man who so calculatingly betrayed that trust. However, hate of this kind hurts the victim a second time. It creates an incipient, festering wound that grows and grows over time. It can't change the circumstances and the hate can't change the other person. It seems counter intuitive that forgiveness would actually heal someone but it does. And forgiveness is not dependent on the repentance of the other person. To be clear, I am not talking about justice. Bernie Madoff needed to pay for his crimes. But for the sake of the victims, they can only heal if they forgive.

The standard by comparison is the forgiveness of God. A fully just God could come at me with full wrath for all of the times I have sinned against Him. But that same God is infinitely merciful and He forgives my sin. He cannot forgive my sin without justice for He cannot just overlook sin. So the justice is meted out on His Son. Therefore when a human being faces betrayal, he cannot look at the debtor and see the size of the debt circumstantially, but he must look at the size of the debt relative to the larger debt that God has paid on his behalf (Matthew 18:23-35).

Something weird happens when forgiveness happens. It heals the person. The reality of the debt is still there, but the offended person can somehow move on. I think that change can only be explained supernaturally. In our natural tendency, vengeance and hate just seem right when in fact it is so wrong.

The Age of Blame

"I'll make them pay"
"Serious lawyers for serious injuries"
"Had an accident - call the man with the bike"

And so on and on it goes. I never thought I would see the day where major media coverage is sponsored by personal injury lawyers. I see prevalence of personal injury lawyers as a symptom of a bigger problem. We are so quick to blame others and so reluctant to accept responsibility. As in everything, there is a balance.  There are situations where it is absolutely necessary to hire someone to represent you. But that should be a last resort, not the first line of thought. I think of my father-in-law who had very substandard care in a hospital before his death. But it is highly unlikely that his care would have changed the outcome. So is blame healthy in that situation? Probably not.

There must be a reason these guys are advertising so often. They are feeding into that "it's someone else's fault" mentality. What most people don't realize is that there is enormous collateral damage fostered by this atmosphere of blame. Costs of services go up exponentially because there is a cost to protect one's backside. Then you have to ask whether it is even worth it. Public services are quickly going away because of the threat of liability.

But I think the most insidious thing is the personal cost of the blame-game. Blaming and getting retribution is never healthy for someone. When Peter asked Jesus how many times should he forgive, he thought he was being generous when he said seven times. Jesus replied it is seventy times seven (Matthew 18:21-22).  In other words, unlimited. When we seek to blame others, it actually costs us. Strange as it may sound, it is so much healthier to give it up. More times than not, it is not worth for ourselves. If there is loss, absorbing the loss is actually better than fighting for the gain. This is particularly true for Christians where it is actually commanded by Paul to not seek justice where it can detract from personal relationship (1st Corinthians 6:1-8).

Love Your Enemies

I am just so taken aback by the life of Nelson Mandela.  Nelson Mandela was not a perfect person and he was a sinful man like each of us.  But he demonstrated the biblical concept of not only forgiving your enemies, but embracing them.  Jesus said to go above and beyond with your enemies and Mandela did just that.  And South Africa not only was spared a potentially nasty civil war, but it experienced reconciliation.

Just pause and think what might have happened if he came out of 27 years of incarceration and easily rallied the black population in war.  But he not only didn't do that, he embraced his enemy.  This is vividly portrayed in the movie Invictus.  Mandela embraced the mostly white rugby team that symbolized oppression and made it the national team.  He got South Africa on the national stage and made it the rallying cry.

I just saw the 60 minutes interview with family, friends, workers about Nelson Mandela.  One interviewee said he was a normal man to which Anderson Cooper said, "it is not normal to forgive after 27 years in prison".  He was right.  It is supernatural to forgive that way, but he did.  And it sets an example for each of us.

Paid in Full

It is finished!  John 19:30

I have signed a lot of contracts in my life.  I am especially careful about signing contracts because I know the contract means that I have to deliver what is in the contract.  If it is services, we get paid for services we deliver.  If it is a loan, we have an obligation to repay the loan.  In our culture, we seemingly can get out of obligations by defaulting or filing bankruptcy, or even failing to deliver the services promised.  However, at the time of Jesus if you did not fulfill an obligation, you or your family could be sold into slavery to repay the debt.  It means you taking on an obligation that you are sure you can repay. 

But how about a debt you could never repay?  That is the debt you have incurred because of your sin.  Your debt is astronomical.  We have a picture of this in the parable in Matthew 18.  The king (master) wished to settle accounts with his servants (slaves).  One of those owed 10,000 talents.  A talent was 15 years wages so the man would have had to live 15,000 years to repay the debt.  Yet the man falls prostrate and still makes the unbelievable claim that he would repay everything if the master had mercy.  I don’t think so!  Yet somehow we feel we can justify ourselves by our works before a holy and righteous God.   To quote our vernacular – seriously?

At the cross, Jesus redeemed this ENTIRE debt in one fell swoop.  The Greek word teleo indicates to fulfill or bring to an end.  It was used being placed on papyri in receipts for taxes meaning “paid in full”.  Not only was the historical debt paid, but any future debt was also paid.  But the debt was costly.  When a contract is forgiven, we think in terms of the contract fulfillment being waived.  But this contract of sin had to be paid and was paid in full.  Jesus bore it in his life on the cross taking every single sin of you and me upon that cross.  The full weight of God’s fury was laid on Him.  We tend to focus on the physical aspects of the cross (because we can somehow relate to them), but God judged Jesus with the full weight of hell on the cross.  We can scarcely imagine that.

“He made him who knew no sin to BE sin so we might become the righteousness of God in Him” 2 Cor 5:21.  How great is that love!

Just Because We Ask

Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble…
Psalm 107

The term “foxhole faith” refers to someone whose life is falling apart around them and in desperation, they cry out to God to save them. The term actually comes from the wartime, when men who have had nothing to do with God or religion suddenly find themselves in a foxhole with the bullets flying past their head and they cry out to God to save them. “If you get me out of here alive, I’ll serve you, God,” might be something they’d pray in the face of death.  This kind of foxhole commitment rarely ever lasts beyond the rescue. Once the person has returned to safety, the promises fade and life without God eventually returns until the next time they face danger.

In Psalm 107, we have four examples of foxhole faith but the issue isn’t circumstances, but it is depravity.  It is clear from Psalm 107 that the individual is crying out because they are at the end of the rope and the circumstances develop in their lives over a period of time.  The reaction is one of the realization of sinfulness caught up in the circumstances of life.  Remember Peter’s reaction to Jesus in walking on the water or in trying to bring in full of the miraculous fish catch.  It is the realization of depravity and of sin.

Psalm 107:5 – Their soul fainted within them.
Psalm 107:11 – Because they had rebelled.
Psalm 107:18 – They drew near to the gates of death.
Psalm 107:26 – Their soul melted away in their misery.

In each case, God did not ask them to clean up their act.  The solution was to ask.  Nothing more.  God does not ask us to ever clean up before approaching him.  Four times it says that God “brought them out of their distresses”.  He “brought them out of darkness”.  We have a delivering God.  There are no strings attached.  We only need to approach the throne for forgiveness.  Have you asked forgiveness today?