"This evening we stand at the entrance to the Great Fast, and we enter into this holy season by asking each other for forgiveness.
Forgiveness is at the heart of Christianity, the mystery of Christ. It expresses the love that God has shown us in Christ, our mediator, reconciler, redeemer, and creator, the one who breaks down the wall of separation that we erect through our hardness of heart and brings us into unity with God and with each other.
It is at once the easiest thing—my yoke is light says Christ (Matt. 11:30)—and the hardest thing, as hard as our own hearts, our own sense of self—righteousness and self-worth. It is as hard as taking up the cross, and yet so easy, if only we can embrace it fully.
That which stands in the way of our taking the path of forgiveness is primarily our own hard-heartedness: we often don't want to forgive others, preferring to lick our wounds, aggrieved with others, but satisfied with ourselves, and build our identity on these wounds—“poor me"—and even more we often don’t want to ask for forgiveness, preferring to blame others because they can’t see how right we really are.
How hard it is, yet so easy, to cut through all of this self-righteousness, to accept the forgiveness that Christ offers us, and to forgive one another. By taking the first step, by asking one another for forgiveness, We cut down our ego and all that which would assert itself and justify itself, and we allow our hearts of stone to be cracked open, to receive the love of God, to become hearts of flesh, capable of loving one another.
When we do this we will find that forgiveness is not just a matter of saying "forget it," "it doesn't matter," "let's pretend it never happened." Rather we will find that even the evil and sin that has happened becomes an occasion of joy and life. Just as when Joseph's brother - who had sold him into slavery - were told by Joseph when they approached him: You thought that you did this? In fact, it was God who sent me here to preserve life (Gen. 45:5).
In the same way, if our hearts are set upon Christ and following him into the glory prepared for us from before the foundation of the world, if this is so, then everything that has happened, and happens still, becomes the means by which God is forming us, breaking our stony hearts, so that we might be conformed to the First-Born of many brethren (Rom. 8:29), so that we can indeed rejoice in all things, not only those things for which it is easy to be thankful - the good things that have come our way and the joy that others bring - but also all the trials and tribulations by which we now suffer, pummelling us and softening us, to share in the Pascha of Christ, the Pascha which, as we will sing in a minute, allows us to forgive all in the resurrection of Christ.
It is to this end, and this end alone, that all the extra prayers and ascetic efforts of the coming days are directed - certainly not that we should feel ever more proud of our achievements in them.
According to the Fathers, our life comes from our neighbor. God is the source of life, but it is a life that is lived here and now, with one another. And so our steps to a renewed life must begin concretely here, with one another. And so our steps to a renewed life must begin concretely here, with one another, beginning by asking each other for forgiveness, for all the things we may have done or not done, loose words or deliberate actions, for any offence caused, and, more generally, for having fallen short of what Christ has asked from each of us."
+ Fr John Behr, "The Cross Stands, While The World Turns" (Yonkers: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2014) 25-26.
