I did not truly grasp the concept of forgiveness until I was a freshman in college. I had one of those nightmare roommate experiences that many of us have heard about. As the result of a number of factors, my roommate ended up stabbing me in the chest with a Phillips head screwdriver. Through a series of events, both of us had to appear before the school’s student judicial board, where we basically went on trial. The board found in my favor and allowed me the opportunity to have a say in my roommate’s punishment. As I sat before the judicial board, I had a moment when God encouraged me to offer forgiveness rather than the vengeance that I desired. I asked the board to give him the least of the punishment options and asked to speak to him before the punishment was given. When I spoke to him, I said four simple words: “Ben, I forgive you.”
In many ways, I had a much easier time forgiving my freshman roommate than I have offering forgiveness to those who are close to me. Familiarity seems to suggest that we should be better behaved—or more aware of those things we might say or do that will lead to us to need forgiveness or to forgive. At least as often as I have needed to forgive someone with whom I am close, I myself have either said or done something for which I need to ask forgiveness. Such forgiveness is made more challenging by the simple fact that, more often than not, both my sin and that of the other are ones that we both repeatedly commit.
The true beauty of Jesus’s words to Peter here, though, comes in the realization that even as we have sinned against our brothers and sisters, we have also sinned against our Creator. We require the forgiveness that can only come through the grace of Jesus Christ. Thankfully, the grace that the Lord offers us is unceasing and is offered “not seven times, but seventy-seven times,” which in Hebrew numerology means “without any end.” We are called to reflect the love of God by becoming instruments of forgiveness in all corners of creation.