“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)

Good Friday is nothing if not the biblical definition of amazing grace. According to Luke, one of Jesus’ final acts was that of forgiveness. Forgiveness to his executors, his prosecutors, his persecutors, the Romans, the Jews, the Gentiles, the men, the women, the children, those who rejected him, but also those who followed him. Unmerited, undeserved, unconditional forgiveness.

I feel better when I forgive. I feel relieved when I forgive. My life is less stressful, less burdensome (when was the last time you heard someone use the word burdensome in a sentence…?), less conflicted. When I am able to forgive I know greater peace of mind and spirit. Why, then, do I so often struggle to forgive? Why do I hold onto past hurts or slights? Why hold a grudge? Why waste memory on that which was hurtful, insulting, aggravating, or humiliating? What do I gain by failing to forgive? What do I lose?

Abandoning my Greek geekitude for a Latin fling, a concept that I learned in a college political science course stayed with me across the decades (almost 5 decades to be exact!) and has actually informed my theology: oblivione sempiterna. Early Greeks under Alexander and Romans for centuries under the Caesars developed the concept of intentionally forgetting those divisions and disagreements that led to warfare, so that former enemies could move forward together with a clean slate. Now, of course, such a decision is much easier for the victor to make than the victim, but throughout history world powers have negotiated some form of oblivione sempiterna in order to survive if not thrive. Think of Europe with Germany and Japan with the United States. (Don’t think about the American Civil War where many in the south have yet to forgive or forget what happened 160+ years ago. I live within miles of homes flying the Confederate flag and one sporting a “The South Will Rise Again,” banner.) The concept that the Romans inherited from the Greeks, calling it “everlasting forgetfulness,” simply meant that enemies, opponents, adversaries, and assailants who battled, beat, slandered, quarreled, betrayed, offended, and sought to annihilate each other would need to come to awareness and acceptance that we must learn to share the same planet together. No matter how virulent, violent, hateful, and horrendous the war, world powers agreed to act as if the chaos and cataclysm never happened. Of course, this is all on paper. Emotional resentments and animosity could, and often does, last a long, long time.

We have trite phrases that echo oblivione sempiterna: forgive and forget, let bygones be bygones, bury the hatchet, wipe the slate clean. We also have biblical equivalents: turn the other cheek, God removes our sins as far as the west is from the east, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, forgive as the Lord forgave you.” As difficult as it can be to forgive, forgetting may be even more so.

Are there things we can forgive that we should never forget? As a privileged, educated, straight, white, older adult male I actually have little to forgive or forget. But I wonder about slavery. I wonder about the Holocaust. I wonder about the brutal extermination of indigenous peoples. I wonder about treatment of minorities and today, immigrants. These horrific examples demand apology, repentance, and reparation but is it fair to expect the victims not only to forgive but also to forget?

This causes me a spiritual crisis because I believe it is exactly what Jesus called for and it is the essential definition of God’s grace. God refuses to hold our sin against us because it has been forgiven and is no more. It is as if it never happened. It is gone. It is done. It destroys the destructive power of the past to free us for the incredible potential of the present and the opportunity of the future. Forgiveness cuts all the chains that bind us to before allowing us to live happily ever after. This is so easy to conceive from the position of power and privilege, it feels like such an unfair burden for those who have been oppressed, dehumanized, humiliated, despised, and/or destroyed.

And yet. And yet. Can we ever become the people God needs us to be while chained to past events. Can victims ever be victors by holding onto hurts, harms, insults and injuries? Unless we learn to forgive as God forgives and to forget as God forgets, can we truly ever usher in God’s kin*dom in this reality? The past has the potential to be a blessing or a curse. Denying it is fraught with peril, but living in it is hell. Learning from it is the only way, and we must learn to truly apologize for the wrongs committed, learn to accept with grace, and dedicate ourselves to never allowing atrocities to occur again. “Father, forgive us, we know not what we do,” but when we know and do it anyway, teach us to do and be better.