It was a moment that no one who saw it will ever forget. In a memorial service that had already glorified Jesus in so many ways, Erika Kirk did what some people believed was the unthinkable. She forgave the man who assassinated her husband, Charlie.
With untold millions watching, Kirk said eight simple words that stopped everyone in their tracks: “That man, that young man, I forgive him.”
Forgiveness is one of those actions that should be easier than it often is. It’s also something that we probably do more often than we realize. We deal with offenses, hurts, and slights every day, and we might not have to hear a formal apology and issue an official forgiveness — instead, we just deal with those issues and move on.
But it’s the times when we have to forgive something big that can be difficult. Erika Kirk gave us a tremendous example; after all, not many of us are going to have to forgive the public murderer of our spouse. Jesus’ example of forgiveness is the standard; on the cross, He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:24, ESV).
Side note: It could be easy to say, “Yeah, but Jesus was both fully God and fully human.” Still, He set the standard that we should live by in so many ways, including forgiving those who hurt us.
But the Bible gives us plenty of admonishments to forgive others. Witness this exchange between Jesus and the Apostle Peter:
Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Matthew 18:21-22 (ESV)
Some translations say, “seventy times seven.” Either way, 77 or 490 times is a lot, and it’s Jesus’ way of telling us to forgive others infinitely.
Related: Charlie Kirk’s Memorial Proved His Legacy: Pointing People to Jesus
Jesus told His followers, “And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses” (Mark 11:25, ESV). The Apostle Paul wrote to the churches in Colosse, “…if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive” (Colossians 3:13, ESV). Those passages just scratch the surface of God’s command to forgive.
But I’ll say it again: Forgiveness isn’t easy. On my way to and from church on Sunday, I listened to a podcast interview with Dr. Everett Worthington, who is a Christian and a clinical psychologist who studies forgiveness. On New Year’s Day 1996, he had the chance to put his studies to the test when he found out that a young man had murdered his elderly mother in a botched robbery.
Worthington said that as he sat with his siblings that morning, he declared that he would like to take the baseball bat in the corner of the room and do to the young man what he allegedly did to Worthington’s mother. Later that night, Worthington realized that it was his Christian duty to forgive the young man, so he did.
The police botched the investigation, and the young man eventually went free. Worthington said that he had an easier time forgiving his mother’s killer than he did forgiving the authorities. By contrast, Worthington’s brother, who discovered their mother’s body, was unable to find forgiveness in his heart, and it led him to take his own life.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean that you have to forget or pretend like the offense never happened. In recent years, I’ve had to end two friendships even though I forgave those friends. One of them was someone who offended me at the intersection of professional and personal life; I forgave him, but I couldn’t let the friendship continue.
The other was a friend who was like family to me but took advantage of me financially. In that case, I tried to continue the friendship, but he continued trying to get money from me. I had to sever that relationship for the sake of my bank account and my sanity.
Forgiveness is difficult, but it’s necessary. I can’t remember who said it, but somebody said that forgiveness is more beneficial to the one doing the forgiving than it is for the recipient. I believe it because the times I’ve forgiven people for major offenses took a load of my mind and heart, and even those “just move on” small acts of forgiveness are satisfying.