Or… How Shall We Then Forgive? Part 12

Two of my closest friends are my sisters, which is fortunate because our family moved a total of nine times before I launched out on my own. In keeping with our transient upbringing, we have each made multiple moves as adults. Between the three of us, we have lived in a total of seven counties and nine states. We have joint friends, but we also occasionally have the pleasure of meeting each other’s friends from paths we didn’t share together. There is something automatic about friendship with my sisters’ friends.

If relationships are like IKEA furniture (assembly required), meeting my sisters’ friends feels more like a delivery truck arriving with a fully constructed sofa. If relationships are like a garden, my sisters’ friends are not the plants I start from seed. They’re more like the sapling I transplant. Because I am attached to my sister, and my sister is attached to her friend, our attachments connect us to each other through my sister.

In his book, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes about Jesus being not only the mediator between us and God, but also the mediator between us and each other. Any true spiritual connection between people, he argues, necessarily occurs through Christ. The reality that Christ has accepted me and accepted another person is the basis of our connection with each other. More than that, he rules out any direct connection between persons, bypassing Christ, as false community. “Within the spiritual community there is never, nor in any way, any immediate relationship of one to another.”(p. 32) Jesus is in the middle of any relating that is going on–at least if it is true, spiritual community. 

I find this idea–of Jesus being in the middle–so incredibly helpful to all kinds of relationships. Both the pleasant and the painful ones. But since we are talking about forgiveness, let’s think about the painful ones. It seriously lowers my blood pressure to think of not having direct contact with certain people. It is a relief to have someone in the middle, between us. The Safest Person alive has wedged Himself in between me and my unsafe person(s).

Sometimes I imagine as though I am surrounded by a big protective bubble. Or I love the scene from Big Hero 6 of Baymax hugging Hiro. Thinking of Jesus being the middle man has a similar emotional impact for me as I navigate forgiving and loving my enemies.

Now I may still need to interact. Love may call me to do that. It’s still hard to write that message, pick up the phone, or walk through that door. But there is a world of difference walking into a space of hostility alone, and walking into a space of hostility behind Someone who is going to stand in between you and the hostility.*

With God as my avenger and Jesus as my buffer, I have found the courage to stay sober from revenge, hate, and fear. And it is such a better life, guys. It is such a better life.

♰♰♰

*It is also good and OK to walk away from hostility too. For some other thoughts on this related to forgiveness, check out some of my earlier posts, such as this or this.