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One: Jesus calls us to forgive.
Many: Yet we stand at the empty tomb.
One: Jesus calls us to life.
Many: Even though we remember the cross and its death.
One: Jesus calls us to hope.
Many: Yet as the hammer and nails are still in the grip of our hands.
One: Jesus calls us to love and remember all that has happened.
Many: Even though we would rather forget.
One: Jesus says do not forgive and forget, rather remember and reconcile.
Many: The cross remembers – The empty tomb begins the reconciliation.
All: May we forgive, with hope, and remember with love, and reconcile, and be made new in the terrifying and irresistible grace of God.
PJC '00
Inspired by Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis by L. Gregory Jones. Jones is the Dean of The Divinity School at Duke University and is a regular columnist in Christian Century as well as contributing to many other journals and magazines.
“The eucharist is an eschatological meal that recalls the past, anticipates the future, and sustains us in the present. ... It recalls the past of our desertions and betrayals of Jesus on Holy Thursday and Good Friday, even as it points us forward to the celebration of the Easter feast. ... And, in so doing, the eucharist recalls the particularities of our pasts even as it enables and teaches us to remember them in hope for the future of new and renewed friendship with God in God’s Kingdom.” (pages 176-77) from the chapter “Practicing Forgiveness”.