SVLC DEVOTION FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 2024

Rachael remembers when she was seven. She and her two younger siblings were being awful, fighting, refusing to listen to their mom when she asked them to do the slightest thing. Near the end of the day, their beleaguered mother locked herself in the one spot she might find a moment of reprieve: the bathroom. Rachael and her siblings were thrilled to continue their reign of terror—until dad got home.

They quieted down, heard him knock on the bathroom door, then a tender exchange of voices. Then Rachael heard her dad call her name. She came to him, expecting him to scold her for jumping on the bed or fighting with her siblings. Instead, he asked her a question, “Did you know your mother was crying in the bathroom?” She hadn’t. “That’s my wife,” he said, his voice serious. “That’s my wife,” he repeated, “Your behavior today hurt my wife, and you need to know this: I love her, and I will protect her.” The scene is from Rachael Denhollander’s memoir titled What’s a Girl Worth?

Rachael’s longer story, which we’ll talk about in more detail in this week’s Lutheran Hour sermon, is a powerful example of what biblical forgiveness looks like, even in a most extreme case—sexual abuse. But before she shares that part of the story, Rachael tells us how her parents showed her what it means to be a forgiven and forgiving follower of Jesus. It means that Jesus has stepped in between us, like how Rachael’s father stepped in between her and her mother. It means that Christians can no longer relate directly  with any other human being, even one who has wronged us, or whom we have wronged. It means that Jesus is always our Mediator, our Protector, our go-between. As the apostle Paul said, “None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:7-8). This means that I’m never dealing with a lone individual, but always someone “for whom Christ died.” (See Romans 14:7-8, 15.)

This is the truth behind Jesus’ rather harsh-sounding parable about forgiveness in Matthew 18:21-35. Not everything about the servants and the master in the parable is true about us and God. It’s not true that the first servant’s debt was unpayable. It was big, but not technically unpayable. But our debt to God is. Also, it’s not true that the master in the parable gave his only son to die for his servants, to pay their unpayable debts. But it is true of God. Finally, we don’t know if the master ever offered the unmerciful servant an opportunity to repent. But we do know this is true of God’s grace to us.

God isn’t the same as the master in the story, but Jesus says there are similarities. Like the master, God’s gives us the dignity of being responsible for our actions. And God cares about how His servants treat each other. God doesn’t ignore abuse. And also like the master, God insists on being the Mediator between His servants. But if any servant insists on being his own master, he will also be refusing the protection of the Mediator. And without a Mediator—all that’s left is an unpayable debt.

Lord, have mercy!

WE PRAY: Dear Father, Your Son bought us all with His blood. Help us to live, forgiven and forgiving, not to ourselves, but to Him who died, more than that, who was raised from the dead. Amen.

This Daily Devotion was written by Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler, Speaker of The Lutheran Hour.

Reflection Questions:

1. Has someone ever done something to you that felt, or still feels, unforgivable?

2. Has someone ever failed to do something for you that felt, for a time, unforgiveable?