Is there someone in your life you cannot and/or do not want to forgive? If so, I implore you to read the following.
Bob Merritt, Senior Pastor at EagleBrook Church, sent out an e-mail this week telling us, his congregation, that this would be one of those “don’t miss” services. He rarely sends out an e-mail like that, so when my wife and I woke up late this morning, we knew that skipping church was not an option. We rushed to get our family ready and arrived about ten minutes into the service, hoping the “don’t miss” part had not passed us by.
With about twenty minutes to go in the service, nothing extra special had happened. Pastor Bob was delivering a solid message on forgiveness, which he defined as choosing to let something go. He told us that forgiveness is a decision, and is a process that can take time. Pastor Bob explained that forgiveness doesn’t mean you forget what someone did or said to you, and you may even need to end your relationship what that person for a time, even if you have forgiven them. Bob further discussed how forgiving someone is never what you want to do, and it does not benefit the other person as much as it benefits you – it sets you free and allows you to release your anger and sleep at night.
Although I had heard all of this from Pastor Bob before, they were still great reminders. Then, the “can’t miss” part of the service began. Pastor Bob showed a recent segment from CBS Evening News.
Back in 1993, 20 year old Laramiun Byrd was gunned down by 16 year old Oshea (pronounced O-shay) Israel
Early on, the news segment showed Laramiun’s mother, Mary Johnson, visiting her son’s grave. Well, so much for a “don’t miss” service, it was obvious what was coming up. Mary would say that she forgave Oshea, the boy who murdered her son. Impressive, but I think our pastor oversold the importance of the service a bit.
The video took a bit of a twist when stating that Oshea was released after 17 years in prison and now lived in the same North Minneapolis neighborhood as Mary. Whoa, that’s kind of freaky.
Then, the video described just how close they lived. Mary and Oshea were shown standing three feet apart, each in the front door of their adjacent apartment units. Wow.
Next came a few comments from Mary and Oshea, the most powerful being Mary’s comment that, “Unforgiveness is like cancer, it will eat you from the inside.”
Although the message was powerful, I was not sure why it was a “don’t miss.” Heck, our pastor could have just sent us the internet link to the video.
The video ended and when the lights in the church came back on, three chairs and a table joined Pastor Bob on stage. “Hmmmm,” I thought, “what is this all about?” I was pretty sure Pastor Bob was going to invite a couple people on stage and either moderate a forgiveness between them, or himself grant or ask for forgiveness from them.
So much for that. “Please help me welcome to the stage, Mary and Oshea.” After I got over my initial shock of watching Mary and Oshea walk onto the stage and give Pastor Bob a big group-hug, I noticed that others were giving them a standing ovation, so I joined in.
Over the next 15 minutes, Pastor Bob asked Mary and Oshea a number of tough questions. Mary was very passionate and eloquent in her answers. Oshea was pretty reserved, but had many great one liners, including, “I was scared to meet Mary. Have you ever met an angry mother? I’d rather deal with prisoners.”
They told the story of how Mary brimmed with anger for 12 years before realizing she needed to forgive Oshea. She first met Oshea in prison, then she threw him a party when he left prison. The 35 people she invited to the party took turns telling Oshea how they could help his transition back into society. These connections ultimately helped Oshea rent the apartment next to Mary. She joked that being this close to Oshea came in handy this morning as she was able to simply pound on the wall and call to Oshea that it was time to go to church.
Near the end of the interview, Oshea talked about the day he first met Mary in prison. He was terrified of the meeting, but by the end of it, he felt he needed to do something for Mary. So, at the end of their meeting, he asked her if he could give her a hug.
He described how she wrapped herself around him, sobbing and wailing, while giving him a most powerful embrace. Virtually the entire congregation was quite choked up at this point (well, at least I know my wife and I were), but Oshea let us off the hook when he quipped, “Here she is hugging me and going hysterical, and I’m looking around at the prison guards thinking, ‘why don’t one of you get this crazy lady off of me?’”
The point is this. Mary could have hated Oshea for the rest of her life and withheld forgiveness, but what good would that have done her? If Mary can forgive Oshea, the murderer of her only child, we can certainly forgive each other for much lesser wrongs.
Yeah, I guess pastor was right when he said it was a “don’t miss.”
Note: The views and interpretations are my own. To see the actual message, go to http://www.eaglebrookchurch.com/, the message should be online within a couple days.
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