Seventy times Seven

Christ and the Penitent Sinners. Peter Paul Rubens.

Then Peter came up to him and said "Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As may as seven times?" Jesus said to him "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven." Matthew 18:21&22

Peter might have thought he was being generous by being willing to forgive his brother seven times, but it seems that Jesus had more in mind. As always. Jesus has more.

For years I've prayed that God would help me understand what it really means to forgive someone. I've never heard a definition that sounded right to my soul. But I think it has something to do with being willing to follow Christ into and through his process of redemption. Maybe it has something to do with taking metaphorical hands off the wheel and allowing redemption to happen. Like grass growing through the cracks in the sidewalk. And knowing, really knowing, that Christ is redeeming the world. And being glad that love doesn't have to do with punishment or fear. 

So, today, I ask Jesus "Lord, how many times to I have to say I'm sorry to my brother? As many as seven times?" And Jesus says to me, "I do not say to you seven times. But seventy times seven." 

I've long prided myself on my ability to admit when I'm wrong and apologize (I hope you can read the irony in that idea). But I don't like to apologize more than once. Once should do. If I apologize once and you don't forgive me, that's your problem. And if you ask me to apologize twice, I might beat the snot out of you. Well, not really, but metaphorically. Unless I haven't had my coffee. 

But the proverbial rub seems to lie in the fact that sometimes it needs to be said more than once because it needs to be heard more than once. And sometimes, I've got to suck it up and apologize. Once. Twice. Three times. One hundred and forty-four times.  It feels like dying. And it is. It's dying to the belief that I deserve forgiveness. That I am capable of doing it right. I don't and I can't. And sometimes, I need to be sorry about it and say so. More than once.

I think about the Christian life and how it often feels like the Christian death. Death to what feels like living, but is really leading me to spiritual death. I wonder if at the end of my life, I'll think "This is death? I've done this a hundred times." I hope so.