The Gift of Forgiveness

When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. (Matthew 8:1-3 NIV)

The event with Jesus and the Leper concerned Jesus’ willingness to touch the man even though it was illegal, for the man had deeper needs than just being physically healed. Much more healing would have to take place in the man, and it would occur out of the public eye as the man came to grips with the gift from Jesus he had received. As often happens, when I considered the human dynamics with the healing that Jesus gives and with this man, I understood that the man would next need to find a new identity, and re-identification would be required. To understand what I mean, we need to define identification before appreciating re-identification. Here goes:

iden·ti·fi·ca·tion – a largely unconscious process whereby an individual models thoughts, feelings, and actions after those attributed to an object that has been incorporated as a mental image.

For many years this man saw himself as a Leper, which would be a terrible self-image to live with. The negative image of how he saw himself would likely have been deeply impregnated in his mind, and because it takes a lot of repetitive abuse to produce it, it would also take healing in this area of his life to release it. Although they are not lepers, many examples of this man and his negative self-identity walk around you and me daily. We might not know their particular pain, but you can rest assured that there is much of it. Even though a lot has changed about you, perhaps you are an example of someone whose self-image was so deeply wounded in the past that it remains with you even to this day. Though we can sometimes alter our outside appearance through surgery or training or weight loss, or a different look, and even with being identified with Christ, getting to the deeper issue of self-identity is not so quick. Even so, we must no longer carry that wounded self-image, and transformation inside and out is needed.

What happens if we do not take our identity with Christ to that inner place of our self-identity? Like the Leper, even though Jesus can touch us on the surface of our life, we can still keep the old man’s identity within and miss a deeper healing. Unfortunately, when we cover up that pain and conflict and continue to see ourselves as the wounded, abused, shamed, and deeply flawed human we have always seen ourselves to be, we act out, and people get hurt. How so?

Here’s something good to remember to understand how this inner conflict within us lives itself out to others. “Wounded people wound other people. Hurting people hurt other people. Abused children often become abusers. Critical people were often taught criticism by critical family members who criticized them. On and on are the examples.” These are only a few examples of how our inner struggle with self-identity affects others. This is why a re-identification is needed in the way we see ourselves.

The Leper likely went home to a great celebration after being healed. For a while, there would be so much rejoicing that one would think that his life would be immediately and forever changed. But I doubt it happened so quickly. I think there was more healing to be done. I think he would have had a lot of memories of wrongs done against him. It might be only one nasty confrontation after another if he didn’t allow the gift Jesus had given him to make it deeper than skin deep, as was the case with his leprosy. I think he would have to deal with all those past insults and injuries by being reminded of what Jesus taught about forgiving others as he had been forgiven. The old reactive nature of the wounded man would continue until he finally understood that he was a new man who Christ had made, and the old man needed to go.

As we move toward Christmas and our tradition of giving gifts, let’s consider the best gift ever given to this world: Jesus and all He has done for us. Because of what this means to you and me, I would like to ask you to join me in giving our gifts back to Jesus this season. Let’s let the first gift to Him be a jubilee of forgiveness to those who have hurt, wounded, and offended us. This forgiveness that we give to those people is not only a gift to Jesus that He deserves, but it will also be a gift from Him to give us inner healing. We no longer need to carry internal leprosy that disfigures the beautiful heart He wants to reform in us. It is time to allow what He has done for us externally and eternally to work internally as the old wounded man is ushered out the door.

Tomorrow let’s talk about some more gifts that we can give Him.