Letting Go

In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. (2 Corinthians 5:19; NRSV)

The Huria Kristen Batak Protestan (HKBP) church is the Indiana-Kentucky Synod’s global companion in Indonesia. Four of us from this mission territory visited the church and our companion district, Sumatera Timur, in early December. While there I learned that in some HKBP families New Year’s traditions are more important than Christmas, part because they focus on forgiveness. When I asked her about this, HKBP Deaconess Lamria Sinaga said this is true for her family and graciously described for me what her family does to ring in the New Year:

My family gathers together at midnight. We have short worship that includes singing, Bible readings, and an offering. The offering goes to the church to thank God who delivers us again to a new year and a new day. After the worship, my father asks us to share honestly our experiences of the old year and our hopes for the New Year. We begin with the youngest and move toward the oldest in the family. We sometimes cry, because our sharing is about how we have hurt each other by what we’ve said and done in the past year. We ask forgiveness of one another and offer forgiveness to each other. After we have finished sharing our confession and our forgiveness, the oldest in my family offers prayer. Then we share hugs and handshakes and eat together. After a while we go to my grandfather’s house and do the same thing, usually finishing early in the morning. My father says that a heart full of being forgiven and forgiving others will bring us through the new year full of joy and happiness and makes it possible, even when we find trouble and difficulty in the future, to encourage one another.

Creating a list of New Year’s resolutions intended to improve our lives is good. Popping corks and exchanging kisses to welcome the New Year is fun. Standing on the threshold between the past and the future and honestly confessing how we have hurt each other and seeking and offering forgiveness is essential. It’s the ring on which the keys to God’s kingdom hang.

After all, how can we move forward into newness when we are still bound to the hurts, sins, and brokenness of the past? How can we walk into to God’s future together when festering resentments and aching hearts keep us apart?

The primary words for “forgiveness” and “forgive” in New Testament Greek are forms of áphesis and aphíēmi [e.g. Matt 6:14-15; 18:35]. The common root of these words means to let go, to free or be set free. To forgive and be forgiven, then, is to set others free, to be set free ourselves. God does the forgiving, of course. In forgiving and being forgiven we experience the freeing, life-giving power of that gracious gift in our lives. In the act of forgiveness we become means of God’s grace for others and we ourselves are set free to welcome the new future that God offers.

So, let’s ink those lists of resolutions and pop the corks at the appointed time. But what do you say we also use the early days of 2014 to follow – as individuals and families and as congregations – the example of our sisters and brothers of the HKBP? Can we trust God’s grace and be honest with ourselves and with one another about the ways we are still in bondage to the sins, resentments, and hurts of the past and offer to one another the freedom of forgiveness, today and throughout this emerging New Year?