Unvarnished Jesus: A Lenten JourneyEjemplo

Thursday, March 14

Matthew 18:21–35

Jesus gives the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

Today we read about Jesus famously telling us that we are to forgive, not seven times, but seventy times seven! This is interesting because this is not the first time the seventy times seven equation appears in the Bible. Way back in Genesis, the great-great-great- grandson of Cain, a man named Lamech, said, “I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then my revenge is seventy times sevenfold.” Wow! It was Lamech’s exponential revenge that led to exponential violence and the destruction of the world in the flood. (By the way, the only sin mentioned in the days of Noah is violence.) Jesus saves the world by turning exponential revenge into exponential forgiveness. Amen.