For Wilshire Baptist Church
On a recent Sunday at Wilshire we sang “To God Be the Glory,” an old hymn of the Baptist church written by Fanny Crosby in the 1870s. We don’t sing it often, but when we do it always triggers a memory of a Sunday morning in my childhood or youth when we sang that hymn and I was convicted by the words of the second verse:
Oh, perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
To every believer the promise of God;
The vilest offender who truly believes,
That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.
I don’t recall what was going on with me at the time. I’d always been a pretty good kid, but for some reason the words “vilest offender” troubled me deeply as if I was guilty of some heinous crime. And while the word “pardon” was supposed to give me hope and relief regarding the state of my immortal soul, I wasn’t so sure. Ever since then, whenever I hear that hymn, I sort of swallow hard.
Hearing the hymn again recently, I had a new reaction, a new question actually: Do I really believe those words — that the vilest offender can be pardoned just by believing in Christ? From the perspective of a life-long Christian, the answer is “yes, if they confess their sins and profess their faith.” However, if I take the lead of our present-day culture, the answer might be “no.”
Setting aside the recent flurry of pardons on both sides of the political aisle and their dubious motivations, it’s hard to believe the words of Fanny Crosby in a culture hesitant to pardon or forgive anyone for anything. In fact, it seems some things are unpardonable and unforgivable. Even if someone is arrested, stands trial, is found guilty, convicted, sentenced and serves time, we seem unable to forgive and let them move on with their life.
It’s even worse when someone is convicted in the court of public opinion without the benefit of a hearing and a chance to speak. Sometimes they aren’t allowed to speak because, frankly, we don’t want to hear their side of the story. We prefer they be guilty; their guilt satisfies our need to express our self-righteous indignation. Some people measure their success by the size of the alleged crimes of their defeated enemies. And if they don’t have real enemies, it’s easy enough to create some from those who are guilty of nothing more than having a different opinion.
The only way back to grace, fairness and genuine justice is to follow the lead of Jesus, but that seems nearly impossible too when we let ourselves be ruled by our human inclination for vengeance posing as justice. Lyle Lovett puts it this way in his song “God Will,” sung from the perspective of a man who has been betrayed by a lover:
Who says he’ll forgive you
And says that he’ll miss you
And dream of your sweet memory?
God does, but I don’t
God will, but I won’t
And that’s the difference
Between God and me.
Yes, we are definitely different from God. On the one hand, we’re prone to repeat our bad behaviors even after we’ve confessed our sins, paid our debts and been allowed to move on. And on the other hand, we hold grudges that force offenders into the shadows of guilt, self-doubt and shame.
And yet, we’re created in the image of God, aren’t we? You know, the forgiving God that Fanny Crosby described in the first verse of her hymn:
To God be the glory, great things He hath done;
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
Who yielded His life an atonement for sin,
And opened the life gate that all may go in.
Interestingly, that same Sunday we sang Crosby’s hymn, we sang “Come On Up to the House,” a song by contemporary singer-songwriter Tom Waites. It’s a good song, as are many of his, including one I like titled “I Beg Your Pardon” with a tender longing for reconciliation expressed in the chorus:
I got upset
I lost my head
I didn’t mean the things I said
You are the landscape of my dreams
Darling I beg your pardon.
It’s a secular song about forgiveness and not meant for church at all because it misses the mark theologically in a big way: We don’t have to beg God for a pardon or forgiveness. But the song does get something right: confession is a good first step toward restoring a relationship.