"Imagine this scene
from a courtroom trial in South Africa:
A frail black woman
stands slowly to her feet. She is something over 70 years of
age. Facing her from across the room are several white
security police officers, one of whom, a Mr. Van der Broek,
has just been tried and found implicated in the murders of
both the woman's son and her husband some years before.
"It was indeed Mr. Van
der Broek, it has been established, who had come to the
woman's home a number of years back, taken her only child -
a son, shot him at point -blank range and then burned the
young man's body on a fire while he and his officers partied
nearby.
"Several years later,
Van der Broek and his cohorts had returned to take away her
husband as well. For many months she heard nothing of his
whereabouts. Then, almost two years after her husband's
disappearance, the hate-filled Van der Broek came back to
fetch the woman herself. How vividly she remembers that
evening, going to a place beside a river where she was shown
her husband, bound and beaten, but still strong in spirit,
lying on a pile of wood. The last words she heard from his
swollen lips as the officers poured gasoline over his body
and set him aflame were, "Father, forgive them..."
"And now the elderly
widow woman stands in the courtroom and listens to the
confession offered by Mr. Van der Broek. A member of South
Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission turns to her
and asks, "So, what do you want now? How should justice be
done to this man who has so brutally destroyed your loved
ones??"
"I want three things,"
begins the old woman, calmly, but confidently. "I want first
to be taken to the place where my husband's body was burned
so that I can gather up the dust and give his remains a
decent burial." She pauses, then continues. "My husband and
son were my only family. I want, secondly, therefore, for
Mr. Van der Broek to become my adopted son. I would like for
him to come twice a month to the ghetto and spend a day with
me, so that I can pour out on him whatever love I still have
remaining within me, for the rest of my years."
"And, finally," she
says with tears welling in her eyes, "I want a third thing.
I would like Mr. Van der Broek to know that I offer him my
forgiveness because Jesus Christ died to forgive. This was
also the wish of my husband. And so I would kindly ask
someone to come to my side and lead me across the courtroom
so that I can take Mr. Van der Broek in my arms, embrace
him, and let him know that he is truly forgiven." As the
court assistants come to lead the elderly woman across the
room, Mr. van der Broek, overwhelmed by what he has just
heard, faints. And as he does, those in the courtroom,
friends, family, neighbors -all victims of decades of
oppression and injustice--begin to sing softly, but
assuredly, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a
wretch like me...."
This is the powerful
forgiveness that God has shown mankind. By adopting us as
sons and daughters and pouring out His love and blessings on
us, though we rejected, beat, spat upon and finally murdered
His beloved and only Son, Jesus. Author Unknown
