[AI translation] First of all, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this next sentence of the Lord's Prayer is connected to the previous one with an underlined "and". We know that "and" is a conjunction. It means that Jesus is closely linking the request for bread and the prayer for forgiveness of sins. It is as if he is saying that you need daily forgiveness of sins just as much as you need daily bread! Yes, both are indispensable: bread for the stomach, because without it we would die, and forgiveness for our souls, because without it we would die. And doubly so: not only physically, but even more terrifyingly, spiritually, not only for the present time, but also for eternity. Both require their share: the stomach as well as the soul. Only the stomach makes louder demands when it is hungry: it gives warning signs when it has no bread to live on. The voice of the hungry soul is much quieter: it does not growl like the stomach, but only sighs, suffers in silence and withers for lack of its provider, forgiveness of sins.Here, then, Jesus says very clearly that man indeed lives not only by bread, but also by every Word that comes from the mouth of God. And the greatest Word, the most powerful word, the most decisive statement that comes from the mouth of God is contained in this one word: forgiveness of sins. That's why Jesus teaches us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." And God has indeed forgiven our sins. The great divine sacrifice necessary for the forgiveness of all human sins has been completed. It was completed on Calvary. As terrible, horrible, enormous as human sin is in the world, there is something even greater, more powerful, more comprehensive: the sacrifice of God for sin on the cross. Since that one innocent man, taking upon himself the full wrath of God for sin, the curse of sin, cried out, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" - a new era has begun in the life of the world: an era of free forgiveness offered by grace. We live in it until the return of Christ.
Jesus' redemptive death there on the cross means that God has proclaimed full amnesty for all sinful people. We do not have to beg God for forgiveness, because that is already done, but we have to share in what Jesus has earned for us. Our petition is for Him to share with us His forgiving grace for sins. With this petition: forgive us our sins, we are extending our hand to receive the grace that God offers us in Jesus Christ. By asking, we are receiving God's greatest gift. For what is forgiveness of sins? Sin means that a certain partition is created between me and the One against whom I have sinned. If I am now forgiven, it means that that partition is no longer between us, it is removed, erased by the other being reconciled to me. So communion has been restored between us. So forgiveness of sin means the restoration of the fellowship of life between God and man that was lost through sin. Through forgiveness of sin, everything that stood in the way of a direct relationship with God is removed. Sin is like a break in the electric wire: contact, contact is gone. It was into this break that Jesus, by His death and resurrection, rejoined what had been torn between God and man, between heaven and earth. For this reason, forgiveness of sins is not only the remission of the consequences of certain transgressions, but also a completely new relationship between God and man. With forgiveness of sins, God offers man a new beginning, a new life. It is a decisive event that closes the past and opens a new future. He encourages and prompts us to begin a new life under the scope of grace.
The king in the parable, when he forgave the debt of ten thousand talents to the servant who owed it, let him go. As if to say to him: Now you are free, you can start a new life. Forgiveness is an instant blessing. It is not only a future, not only a bridge that will carry you to eternity at the moment of death, but a power that actually works. It is not a check to be paid in the afterlife, but an actual, real relationship with God. This is what we ask when we pray, "Forgive us our trespasses." That is, that we may be nourished and sustained by the power of His forgiving grace today, that we may be sustained and strengthened in the fellowship of life made possible by God's forgiveness of sins today. For even so, I sin again and again. Even the converted Christian who lives by grace sins and neglects so much day after day that his debt, his debt, what is on his record, grows incredibly. We must always ask for this debt to be forgiven again, otherwise it will overwhelm us. It is precisely those who have experienced the once-for-all power of forgiveness of sins to create new life that feel vividly how one cannot live without daily forgiveness and repentance, just as a person who cleanses himself properly does not feel well without daily washing. Every day we need Christ to do the work of forgiveness in us anew. As a result of walking on the earth, we need to be washed again and again from daily defilement, otherwise we will drown in our own filth. Let our daily prayer, therefore, be a pilgrimage to Calvary, repeated day after day: "And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive..." The second half of the petition is so important to Jesus that, after saying it, he returns to it and explains it further: "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your Father in heaven will forgive you your trespasses." (Mt 6,14)
Jesus gives a very graphic example of how infinitely great man's debt to God is, and how insignificantly small man's debt to another man is in comparison. The one is expressed in terms of ten thousand talents, the other in terms of 100 denarii. According to our present monetary value, we should say about fifty million Ft and 100Ft. From this we see that man's sin against God is as irredeemable, unpayable, indelible a debt as it would be impossible for a man to normally and in a normal way to accumulate the cover of a debt of fifty million forints for a lifetime. While, on the other hand, the sins and transgressions of men against each other can be settled, just as it is possible for a poor man to work off a debt of 100Ft with the work of his two hands. And now the terrible thing about this parable is that God not only gives us a respite, but also the cancellation of the whole debt, i.e. 100% mercy, whereas the servant, on the other hand, is not even willing to give a respite, but wants to recover that small debt by the cruelest means, i.e. he is 100% merciless.
Is this really the case? Is man really as wicked as Jesus portrays him here in the form of this servant? Unfortunately, yes. The most terrible example of this is the day in the history of the world when a man who had always done nothing but good to his fellow man was executed in the most ruthless manner: Good Friday. But we see just enough evidence of this ruthlessness in our daily lives. How much more easily we ourselves can repent and confess another man's sin than our own! How much more interested we are in the sins of others than in our own! We talk about them more, take them more seriously than these. We do not even notice it any more, we are so used to it, that the main topic of conversation, the most enjoyable delicacy, is the other's sin, omission, fault. We laugh at it, criticize it, judge it, weigh it, chew it, as if we had nothing more urgent to do with it. But we do: to pass on to them the forgiveness of sins that God has given us. Just as the sun is there to bake, the bird to sing, the flower to bloom, the fire to burn: forgiveness of sins is there so that we can forgive others. Perhaps this world experiences so little of the salt and light of the Church because we are more interested and concerned about the sins of others than the forgiveness of sins that we should pass on to the world. Yet we ask: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us".
Here Jesus very closely links the forgiveness of sins received from God and the forgiveness passed on to those who have wronged us. It could almost be said that way, because that is the sense: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive you." So, so much, so truly, so completely! If one wants to know whether forgiveness is easy or difficult for God, let us think of ourselves and of the one who has offended us. We are willing to forgive the sins of the whole world, we confess forgiveness in general and in principle - but there is someone, perhaps a person, a company, a group, whose image, when it arises in the soul, seizes the soul, the fist clenches, the inner voice reveals itself: I cannot forgive, not this one! Or one says to oneself: 'I forgive, but I can no longer love! I forgive, but I don't care anymore! Or: I forgive, but I break up with him." For the prayer says: "Forgive me as I forgive the other!" Whoever prays the Lord's Prayer with a hateful, resentful, unmerciful heart, is asking for judgment upon himself. "Lord, never forget my sins, keep track of them and judge me for them."
We would not be able to forgive completely if we did not have the strength to do so! For myself, I could only forgive others in appearance at most, but when I look at the one who lets go of my ten thousand talents: this vision changes my mind, my heart, and can truly forgive me as God forgives me. If you are angry with someone, don't talk about it to people, because they will get angry with you again, but talk about it to God and His forgiveness will overcome your anger! Act like God, who gets rid of his enemies by making them his friends!
Behold, God has created a brand new relationship between Himself and man through the forgiveness of sins. Christianity has the great task of creating a new relationship, a new life, reconciliation and reconciliation between men by passing on the forgiveness of sins received. This request is also made on behalf of others, in the plural, as if to implore that the power of forgiveness of sins may break down hatred, the partitions between family members, between peoples. Perhaps the face of the world would be different now if Christ's followers could truly ask, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."
The true elimination of this petition of the Lord's Prayer is such a great thing that we must pray to be able to eliminate it! So let us take it supplicatingly, as the song puts the prayer into our mouths:
FORGIVE US OUR SINS,
All that great rabies,
That from our first-born
From our ancestors,
All the bad fruits
To vengeance this evil tree has brought.
Looking on the blood of thy holy Son,
Do not bring us to judgment,
And rebuke us not for our transgressions,
And in all things grant,
AS WE ALSO WILL INDULGE YOU,
IF THEY HAVE SINNED AGAINST US.
(Song 483 verses 12-13 of the old hymnal)
Amen
Date: 20 February 1955.
Lesson
Mt 18,21-35