The following is a quote from Bishop Desmond Tutu, who is commenting on the Truth Commissions that followed the massacre in Rwanda. It is an appropriate word on this Good Friday.
We were constantly amazed in the commission at the extraordinary magnanimity that so many of the victims exhibited. Of course there were those who said they would not forgive. That demonstrated for me the important point that forgiveness.… was neither cheap nor easy.… True reconciliation is not cheap. It cost God the death of His only begotten Son….
In forgiving, people are not asked to forget….Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done….It involves trying to understand the perpetrators and so have empathy, to try to stand in their shoes and appreciate the sorts of pressures and influences that might have conditioned them. Forgiveness is not sentimental….Forgiveness means abandoning your right to pay back the perpetrator in his own coin, but it is a loss that liberates the victim….
Does the victim depend on the culprit’s contrition and confession as the precondition for being able to forgive? … Jesus did not wait until those who were nailing him to the Cross had asked for forgiveness. He was ready, as they drove in the nails, to pray to his Father to forgive them and he even provided an excuse {“they do not know what they are doing”}. If the victim could forgive only when the culprit confessed, then the victim would be locked into the culprit’s whim, locked into victimhood….