Resurrection experience
MORE than 40 years ago, a man was kept in solitary confinement in Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija, on charges of treason and subversion. In a book detailing his terrible ordeal, he wrote that he would never forget that night when, filled with the desire for vengeance, he learned to examine his own heart, his motives, and his relationship with God. Benigno Aquino wrote:
“In that prison where my sole companion was darkness and grief, I groped for anything which can relieve me of my depression. I discovered that I had the Rosary in my pocket. In my desperation, I started to pray the sorrowful mysteries. Suddenly, Jesus seemed so near; I could almost touch him. In the mysteries of the Rosary, I saw Jesus as a Godman who preached nothing but love but was rewarded with death. All at once my desire for vengeance disappeared. It dawned on me how small my sufferings were when compared to those of Jesus, He whose only purpose was to save all of us.”
Forgiveness is like a resurrection experience. Its effect on the man who forgives is totally unprecedented, unrepeatable, and gratuitous. The power to forgive changes him forever. That night, Aquino was never the same again.
What is it in forgiving that so totally changes a person? Martin Luther King was arrested five times and put in jail; his home was bombed twice; every day he received death threats; and he was the victim of a near-fatal stabbing. A few days before he was shot to death, he wrote: “As my suffering mounted, I soon realized that there were two ways that I could respond to my situation – either to react with vengeance or to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course. I saw my personal ordeals as an opportunity to transform myself and heal the people involved in the tragic situation which now obtains. I have lived with the conviction that unearned suffering is redemptive.”
When Jesus forgave those who crucified him, many Jews turned their backs on Him. Forgiveness was a great stumbling block to their faith. They wanted a God of justice and retribution, one who exacts vengeance on those who offend Him, and whose law is “a tooth for a tooth; an eye for an eye.” Even today, many people think that there is nothing redemptive in forgiveness or in undeserved suffering.
Imagine a world where forgiveness does not exist. Aside from being inhabited by blind and toothless people, it would be a very lonely world, indeed. The philosopher Jean Paul Sartre would be right in saying, “Hell is other people.” With accumulated pain and hurt, our hearts would overflow with hatred and anger, our minds endlessly hatching plots on how to get even. It would be a world where resurrection would be as meaningless as a rainbow is to a blind man.
What is the Resurrection? It is forgiveness conquering violence, love defeating hatred, life overcoming death. Centuries of wars and vengeance have conditioned us into thinking that forgiveness is only for cowards and the powerless. But in truth, the brave person is not the one who destroys his enemy; he is the one who conquers his desire to retaliate.