You are Already Forgiven

• Souper Bowl Sunday is next Sunday. As you are shopping for football parties, please help us gather soups and non-perishable food items for our local food pantry. 
• The MidWinter Afternoon Tea is FULL. 
• The recorded Reflection will post below the written version after Services. 

The light shifts and change.  We follow a seasons of light and dark and light again.  In Advent, we had a season of darkness waiting for the light.  At Christmas, we felt the coming of the light with Jesus and Christmas.  We had the Star as the guiding light.  At epiphany, we had the light of the holy spirit.  

We’re still in a season of building and growing light.  We’re still in the season of Jesus as a baby, child, and boy.  

Candlemas on February 2nd—as fun as Groundhog Day is, that’s not the end all and be all of February 2nd…although we might rejoice in a prediction for an early spring…or not.  Candlemas is a continuation of the building of the light.  It’s the light growing as we mark the halfway point from winter to spring.  It’s the growing of the light as there is now doubt (even for the most skillful of skeptics out there) that there is more light in each day.  The light is growing and life is awakening.  It’s a time of preparing for spring and new life in the world.  

It’s a time of cleansing, even of the lights themselves.  A ritual of Candlemas is to bring our home candles to be relit from the God Candles of the Churches. 

Within the sweetness (Saint Valentine’s Day, Fat Tuesday, brightening days, Afternoon Teas, Cheery Soups) there is still the darkness, the scary, the opposites at play.  Without darkness, there is no light. Without light, there is no darkness.  We can’t escape the everything of life and living (try as we might sometimes).  

There are hints, even as Jesus is being presented and acknowledged.  The Wise bring frankincense and myrrh…funeral spices. PAUSE.  As Jesus is named, Mary is told her heart will be pierced with what’s to come.  PAUSE.  

You will be broken and cracked.  Leonard Cohen: the cracks are how the light gets in.  Once the light gets in, it can illuminate us and shine forth into the world.  PAUSE.

Candlemas is also how we choose to live our lives.  This is when we take up the candles, the light, and carry Light into the world.  Not alone…all together.  (IMAGE TO SHARE). Saint Teresa from our opening poem: we are the hands and feet of Christ.  

This past week, I read an essay from a writer (Timber Hawkeye) who had a friend who reminded him: “you are already forgiven”.  He was surprised by this, having grown up and internalized guilt and shame and judgement. It stopped him short and silent, as he had grown up on “everything you’re doing wrong” and all the ways “you are bad”.  

He couldn’t wrap his head around “already forgiven”.  What about atonement?  What about working hard to earn forgiveness?  What about sin and evil?  What about confession and sin debt?  What about…?  What about…?  

Wasn’t it all about working to be worthy, working, earning, and paying off first?  Don’t we have to be worthy of forgiveness?  Isn’t that part of the work of life?  To do better.  To be better.  Then compare ourselves against others around us to make sure we’re on the “right track”?  

All these things that can make us feel unworthy, never-good-enough, and judged…and then judgmental of others.  Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin (see article shared).  Why hate anything?  Hate, even “righteous” hate, is the beginning of division, of judgement.  That’s human…forgiveness as exchange.  If you do this, then…maybe…you’ll be forgiven.  If, then.  Maybe.  Keep trying and maybe, just maybe, you’ll be worthy of forgiveness.  

You are already forgiven.  

Of course we’re already forgiven.  We’re already worthy.  The point is not that we’re going to “cheat” and go out and be “bad” and not have to worry about it because we are already forgiven, but that God (whatever that means to you) knows your heart and soul. You’re already forgiven.  It’s not about the confessing-go out and do it again, confess again loop.  You’re already forgiven.  Perhaps confession is reminding ourselves we’re already forgiven and learning to forgive ourselves.  PAUSE.  

In Acts, we looked at the Stoning of Stephen.  He’s the first martyr of the Christian faith.  When he was stoned, he said: Forgive them, they know not what they do.  Sound familiar?    He fell, he prayed, and he asked for forgiveness of his stoners. He echoes Jesus on the Cross, proving that we too, small human frail beings can also forgive in unbelievable cases. 

You are already forgiven.  

It’s easy to get caught up on the not good enough, not worthy enough, do more, do better, until nothing and no one is good enough.  Especially ourselves.  Then, we get hopeless.  Why bother?  This is an impossible task?  We begin to think we are terrible, unforgivable persons!

But what if it’s true that we are already forgiven?  PAUSE.  All of us.  The “worst” of us.  The “best” of us.  What if we truly believed that we are already forgiven?  Perhaps, we’d spend less time proving we’re worthy and then competing for worth, like forgiveness of Grace is finite.  

Perhaps, we’d have more hope.  Hope inspires.  Hoe ignites us.  We shine a little brighter when we’re not proving somethings but believing somethings.  We spend less time in comparison, judgement, hate and condemnation (of ourselves and others) and more time lighting up the world with our little lights.  

Igniting.  Illuminating. Inspiring.  

Jesus spent a lot of time making sure we knew we were forgiven.  Of course, we are already forgiven.  He got in a lot of trouble in a world of sin debt which had to be paid.  Paid.  There’s nothing to pay.  You are already forgiven.  Jesus was still reminding us of this on the Cross.  Stephen was echoing it as he was stoned to death.  It continues to echo off the Cross and into the world.  

You are already forgiven.  

Let’s take our minds away from debt and worry and judgement; the things that dim our lights and make us small.  Let’s go out.  Let’s take up our little lights and let them shine up the world.  Even if we shine too brightly for some.  Even if there are days we forgot to refuel and feel too dim to go out.  Go out.  No one turns on a light and tucks it under a blanket!    

Stay out there, in the middle of the room, in the middle of the world, and shine.  

No matter what other stories are told or other “rules” or “wrongs” are thrown at you like stones, you are already forgiven.  

We know, in our own lives, how hard it is to forgive.  PAUSE.  We know easy it is to withhold forgiveness for an exchange of some sort; if, then.  We know how easy it is to judge and condemn (ourselves and others).  But how beautiful is Forgiveness!  What a light it shines into and onto the world!   Forgive others.  Forgive yourself.  

You are already forgiven.  

And that is the stuff of Grace.