Show script;
Most Radical Statement Of The Year
This was the front page of the newspaper at the newspaper stands in the USA where I was at the time of the Charlie Kirk memorial – beamed around the world and watched by hundreds of millions – perhaps a billion or more
At the memorial service for her husband Charlie Kirk who was assassinated in Utah, Erika Kirk said of the young man who shot her husband,
“I forgive him. I forgive him because it was what Christ did. . . . The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love and always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”
It stunned the world. It made the front page headlines of newspapers around the world.
Here’s a reminder of that powerful moment
The rabid left wing Guardian admitted
During an emotional address at his public memorial in Glendale, Arizona, the widow of rightwing youth organizer Charlie Kirk said she forgives the man charged with killing her husband.
CNN said
Kirk’s widow says she forgives alleged shooter
Even 1News acknowledge it
However, taxpayer funded Radio NZ buried it in their story
The NZ Herald made it about Trump
Stuff made it about MAGA and puts the word forgive in inverted commas.
They labelled the whole thing as a “Mega church service-cum-political rally”.
But it was front page news for most media – because it was so radical.
How could a grieving wife forgive the man who had just killed her husband in cold blood, killed the father of their children – just because they disagreed with him.
Could you do that? Could you have done what Erika Kirk did?
The radical act of forgiveness
Let me explain how she could do it, and why she did it.
The radical act of forgiveness has always fascinated people – and the media.
Here’s one from the Dominion Post 17 years ago
Here’s one from 12 years ago which you may remember – when a dozen Jewish headstones were vandalised with images of swastikas and expletive-ridden anti-Israeli messages.
Some things never change eh
Here’s a more recent one from the US
And one here in NZ from 2010 and reported again in 2021
Choosing forgiveness over anger: Parents’ compassion for driver who killed their son
In fact, even NZ Post understood the power of forgiveness and reconciliation in one of their heartwarming ads many years ago. You may remember this one.
But how could Erika Kirk forgive her husband’s assassin so soon after the event.
What does she understand that perhaps we need to understand.
We pray the Lord’s prayer and we say, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”
I’m not an English expert, but “as we” sort of suggest thatat the same time that we receive forgiveness, we give forgiveness.
The problem is that it’s very easy not to forgive. For a number of reasons.
We can enjoy holding a grudge. We really don’t like the person, so this gives us extra reason to not like them. We sort of feel like they owe us, and so we hold it against them.
But probably the main reason is that sometimes it is just very, very hard.
Just thinking about people who have wronged you makes you feel angry, hurt, portrayed, shamed. There’s lots of negative emotion. In fact, even just thinking about that person or that organisation or that situation takes up a lot of negative vibe and negative energy. And when you plant a tree, it’s easy to rip that tree out as soon as you’ve planted it. But once it takes root, it’s that much harder. It digs deep into our soul.
But God not only wants us to forgive – he will also give us the strength to do it.
That’s the strength that Erika tapped into. Not her own strength.
There was actually an article from the Sydney Morning Herald that I read many years ago where a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin looked at the effect of forgiveness and their conclusion was that it can improve cardiovascular function, diminished chronic pain, relieve depression and boost quality of life among the very ill.
They also found that it could lower blood pressure, fewer depressive symptoms, and in later middle age, better overall mental and physical health than those who do not forgive easily.
Maybe you know some people who are holding grudges – who haven’t forgiven – and it just comes across in their persona.
They just seem very bitter and angry, and you can see it affecting them, not only emotionally, but it affects them physically as well.
Researchers say it’s like proper nutrition and exercise. The act of forgiveness appears to be a behaviour that a patient can learn, exercise, and repeat as needed to prevent disease and preserve health.
There’s a few quotes in this area that I’ve come across.
“Every person should have a special cemetery in which to bury the faults of friends and loved ones.”
“Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the high cost of hatred, and the waste of energy.”
“The heaviest thing a person can carry is a grudge.”
You may have heard of the movie “Dead Man Walking”. Related to that movie is this testimony. Watch.
Debbie Morris is the author of The Counterpart to Dead Man Walking, A Powerful Story of Forgiving the Unforgivable.
“When I was 16 years old, I was kidnapped by two men and I, my boyfriend and I were kidnapped by these two men, and during the course of 36 hours, these two men shot my boyfriend, tortured him and shot him and left him for dead.
And then they r*ped me repeatedly before they finally let me go. And I guess, you know, so many people would consider that alone, unforgivable. And then, uh, you know, after I was released, I found out that they had also kidnapped another girl three days earlier and they murdered her. And so when you look at some of the things that these two men did, most people would put them in the category of unforgivable, and that’s how they were categorized in my life for years as unforgivable.”
Debbie wrote her story down to help her healing process. But also to help others see that there are healing steps beyond mere justice and retribution.
“I think that that many times people in my situation think that justice is what is going to heal them, and I thought that. In fact, I kept looking towards certain milestones, you know, that were going to heal me.
Um, when these two men were captured, everything would be all right. Uh, when the trials were over, you know, when their sentence was handed down and justice was served, that everything would be all right. I would feel healed. And I was disappointed time after time because justice was not fulfilling. And, and I don’t mean to say that there’s no place for justice, you know, as far as our legal system is concerned, um, you know, there needs to be a way to be able to punish offenders, violent offenders, especially.
However, what we get confused about is the healing effect of justice. Justice is not what heals us, and it certainly didn’t heal me. I don’t think that was, was ever, uh, any more clear to me than the morning after Robert Lee Willie, one of the men who kidnapped and raped me was executed.
I thought surely this would be the end and I would feel completely satisfied and completely healed. But what happened was in the weeks before his execution, I was feeling very anxious about it and uncertain and I, I would reflect constantly on my role in his execution. You know, my testifying against him all in the name of justice.
And I realised then that there’s no such thing as justice here on earth for what that man did. He could have died in the electric chair five times and it wasn’t going to be justice for the parents who lost their 18-year-old daughter. It wouldn’t be justice for what I lost as a 16-year-old girl, uh, experiencing that kind of terror and sexual assault and you know, my life was changed forever. There is no justice here on earth for things like that.
The only justice is going to be when God gives his final judgment. There are lots of people out there who like one true crime story after another, and some people can’t get enough of that kind of stuff. But I feel like the power in my story is in being able to show other people how God’s grace changed my life. And that’s the story that I was willing to tell before I got to that point.
I wasn’t even willing to share with people. I knew what had happened to me. There was still so much shame. Involved in it. And you know, when I was able to forgive, not only did the hate and the anger and the pain go away, but the shame did too.”
Corrie Ten Boom who was a Holocaust survivor said, “forgiveness is setting the prisoner free only to find out that the prisoner was me.”
There’s a couple of things I’ve seen commentary on.
Firstly, forgiveness is not forgetting. A lot of people say, once I can forget about them and what they did, then I’ll forgive them. But no, you can’t. You can’t forget the past. You can’t change the past, but you can be free from it, and its effect.
Secondly, forgiveness is a choice. It’s a decision. And because God requires us to do it, we can do it. You may say, why should I let them off the hook? By forgiving you let them off your hook, but they’re not off His hook. There will be a judgment day – Romans 12.
You may say “you don’t know how much they have hurt me.” Sadly that is true, but you forgive for your sake so that you can be free. Forgiveness is obedience between you and God. And God wants you to be free, and this is the way.
The third thing is forgiveness is agreeing to accept and live with the consequences of another person’s sin. We can either live in the bondage of bitterness or the freedom of forgiveness.
That’s a key phrase.
We can either live in the bondage of bitterness or the freedom of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is deciding not to use that offense against them. In other words, to not always keep bringing it up both to them, but to yourself.
It’s really important to note though that some people say, well, you should just go back into situations where it may happen again. No, we need to take a stand against sin. God doesn’t tolerate sin and neither should we. We should not be in situations where that sin continues. We should remove ourselves from those situations.
And the last point is – don’t say, “Lord, I’d really like to forgive”, or “I’ll get around to forgiving.” Or, “I wish I could forgive”.
We need to say, I forgive.
I forgive.
As a result of this discussion, God may be calling on you to take some action around this and maybe sending a note or a phone call, a letter or an email saying that you have forgiven them.
Note thought that it may not be two way. The forgiveness may come from your end but not from the other, and you can’t change that.
God is calling on us as individuals to do it.It’s for our benefit.
But keep praying a blessing on them, the power of the blessing.
We can either live in the bondage of bitterness and it will show and people will pick that up in us, or we can live in the freedom of forgiveness. And God’s plan is for us to live in the freedom of forgiveness.
He commands us to do it. And not only does He command us to do it, He gives us the strength to do it.
That’s why I think Erika Kirk could say what she did – that made the front page of the media headlines around the world.
But she said it not through her own strength but in the strength given to her by God.
She was simply doing what God wanted to do.
It was her choice.
In fact, Erika Kirk confirmed that when she concluded her remarks at the memorial.
I leave you with this.
“Charlie’s life was a turning point for this country. It was a miracle. Let that miracle of his life be your turning point as well. Choose prayer. Choose courage. Choose beauty. Choose adventure. Choose family. Choose a life of faith. Most importantly, choose Christ.”
