My
Brother's Shoes
Jill Carattini
In 1969 Simon
Wiesenthal penned his thought-provoking book, The Sunflower, which
captured the agony he personally experienced in one of history's darkest
moments. Relating one encounter with the Holocaust, Wiesenthal described how he
had been taken from a Nazi death-camp to a makeshift army hospital. He was
ushered by a nurse to the side of a Nazi soldier who had asked to have a few
private moments with a Jew. Wiesenthal warily entered the room and was brought
face to face with a fatally wounded man, bandaged from head to toe. The man
struggled to face him and spoke in broken words. Wiesenthal nervously endured
the anxious monologue, finding himself numbed by the encounter. The soldier
confessed the heinous act of setting ablaze an entire village of Jews; at his
whim, men, women, and children were burned to death. With great anxiety, he
described his inability to silence from his mind the screams of those people.
Now on a deathbed himself, the man was making a last desperate attempt to seek
the forgiveness of a Jew. The man begged him to stay, repeating his cry for
forgiveness, but Wiesenthal could only walk away. At the hands of Nazi soldiers
like this one now dying before him, Wiesenthal had lost eighty-nine of his own
relatives.
Yet even years later
he wondered if he had done the right thing. Should he have accepted the man's
repentance and offered the forgiveness so earnestly sought? Had he neglected a
weighted invitation to speak or was silence the only appropriate reply? Seeking
an answer, Wiesenthal wrote to thirty-two men and women of high
regard--scholars, noble laureates, psychologists, and others. Twenty-six of the
thirty-two affirmed his choice to not offer the forgiveness that was sought. Six
speculated on the costly, but superior, road of pardon and mercy.
I don't know what it
would take to absolve anyone of so monumental a crime. I don't know if it is
possible to offer forgiveness for something so far beyond our moral reach. But I
know that even in the most unfathomable places the God of Scripture somehow
carries the burden of grace. Who can fathom the Son of God on the Cross pleading
with the Father to forgive the guilty for killing him? Who can conceive of a God
who comes among his people, trusting himself to the hands of a fallen world? Who
can grasp the heart of a God who chooses to love an undeserving people? To live
as one marked by his disruptive grace is not easy. The command to forgive is
thoroughly unsettling, in fact, it is sometimes haunting. To persist in love
when we are tired or overwhelmed, or even rightfully angered by injustice, is a
massive and costly request.
I have often found it
easier to fit into shoes of the prodigal son than the shoes of the remaining
older brother. Yet in this well-known parable of Jesus, both sons are invited to
celebrate and rejoice. To the prodigal child who has squandered and defamed,
God's grace is lavish. It is extravagant and poured out on those who neither
expect it, nor deserve it. The celebration is thrown in the honor of the
run-away, over the return of just one lost sheep. When these shoes are ours, we
are both humbled by the Father's attention and compelled by his mercy.
Yet to the child on
the other side of justice, the Father's grace is jarring and disruptive. His
invitation to the feast is both awkward and demanding, a seeming call to
overlook the potential of our brother to strike again at our expense. These
shoes are much harder to walk in. The Father's call to forgive the one whose
sincerity is questionable is often agonizing; his command to love the habitual
prodigals in our midst is both costly and exhausting.
But it is his
request. "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against
me? Up to seven times?" asked Peter. But Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven
times, but seventy times seven" (Matthew 18:21-22). God's grace disrupts our
sense of righteousness and summons us to respond in similar kind. Whether we
find ourselves in the shoes of the prodigal or treading the difficult ground of
the older brother there is good reason to rejoice and celebrate the unveiling
love of the Father. His unfathomable grace and mercy shatters our sense of who
is worthy to enjoy the benefits of God's kingdom, inviting us to the celebration
regardless of where we stand.
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Jill Carattini is senior associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International
Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.