QUARANTINE BLOG # 482

July 25, 2021

Forgive? How Much?

She stands on top of Mamayev Kyrgan, a hill overlooking the Volga River. Towering over the Volgograd landscape, a statute of Родина-мать зовёт!, “The Motherland Calls” her children to her protection. A sword is held high in her right hand; her left stretches back, beckoning to her defenders.

In June, 1993, I stood at the foot of that colossal monument, which marks the site of the bloodiest fighting of what may have been the bloodiest battle of World War II. 

I stared into the eternal flame and wrote my name in the book of memories.

At the Battle of Stalingrad (as the city was then known) the Red Army suffered 1.2 million casualties, the attacking Germans 868,000. Only one of the city’s original buildings still stands from those days 78 years ago, and it is a shattered hulk, a memorial to the honored dead. At one small park, overlooking the Volga River, local residents told me that all of the ground where we were standing had been covered in blood.

In 1998 local authorities in Volgograd halted construction of a cemetery which had been planned to hold the remains of 60,000 to 90,000 German soldiers who had died there. A spokesman said the government had “received many complaints from local people who despised the idea of German soldiers being buried in the same place where Russian soldiers died.”

Should we forgive such offenses as the Nazi invasion? And if so, how much?

In August, 1997, Jo and Michael Pollard, of Yorkshire, England, went to Romania to deliver toys to Christian families. On one leg of the trip, they parked their camper in a rest area and turned in for the night. While they were sleeping, three Hungarian men beat and robbed Jo and Michael. Michael died of heart failure after the beating.

The Pollards, who had served as pastors of Emmanuel Evangelical Church, had gone with love and compassion to reach out to people in need. Senselessly, needlessly, they were beaten. Michael died. Should Jo forgive? If so, how much?

If I had been given editorial privilege over the Bible, I would have used my red pen and inked out Mark 11:26 – “If you do not forgive the hurt others have done to you, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses against Him.”

With the proper motivation, I can be a great grudge-holder, and that verse works against my natural inclination. But I was not given the option to delete it (although some modern Bible translations try to dilute its impact by making it only a footnote). If I do not forgive, if you do not forgive, we plug up the channel of forgiveness between ourselves and God. I may not like it, you may not like it, but there it is and we must deal with it.

Jo Pollard went to the prison where her husband’s murderers were incarcerated and told them, “I am a Christian and God put these words into my mouth: ‘I have love for you and I have forgiven you.’”

Forgive? How much? Look at the Cross where Jesus died. That’s how much.

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