The Mosaic

Forgiven

Steve Graham

Our neighbors had a banner hanging on their front porch to celebrate the season of Lent with purple background behind a cross and a cup and a loaf of bread. Each symbol gives pause. “Lent is a time to take the time to let the power of our faith story take hold of us.” Each symbol speaks powerfully of our journey into Christ. At the bottom of the banner was one word that communicated their blessed hope. The word was “Forgiven.”

That word tells it all.

The gospel narratives each tell us about the woman of the city who brought a vial of perfume and while weeping she began to wet Jesus’ feet with her tears, kept wiping them with her hair, and kissing his feet, and anointing them with the perfume. When the Pharisees complained that if he knew what sort of person this woman was who was touching him, that she was a sinner, it’s Luke’s gospel that brings forgiveness into the picture. Jesus told Simon, “Her sins which are many have been forgiven.” (Luke 7:47).

Lent is a season ripe for communicating this forgiveness. We carry our own sense of failures and disappointments. To read the word “Forgiven,” Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem marking each step as he lived forgiveness. To sustain forgiveness in this world where “instead of holiness the highway is crammed with the cacophony of chaos” and where there is “no sanctuary from the noise of the world,” we eat the loaf and drink the cup and remember the body broken and the love of God poured out for us all.

O God, give to us all, even to those of us whose sins are many, “the trust to know we’re forgiven.”

Thanks, neighbors, for reminding me.