Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk spoke at his memorial service yesterday in Arizona. Erika Kirk said “On the cross, our savior said “Father forgive them, for they not know what they do. That man, that young man, I forgive him.” She also said “I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and is what Charlie would do.”
It was an incredible moment and an incredible offer of forgiveness.
One illustration of grace that’s always struck me comes from the late Tim Keller. It’s the idea that all forgiveness is costly.
If I go to your house, and I break your TV, someone has to pay for it.
You might say “You have to pay for that.” Then I’m bearing the cost.
You might say “It’s ok, don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.” Then you’re bearing the cost.
Maybe you say, “I bought insurance. That’ll replace it.” Then insurance is bearing the cost. And the homeowner paid for the insurance.
Maybe we come to an agreement where we both pay for part of it. Then we’re sharing the cost.
Maybe you say “I was actually going to stop watching TV.” It’s still bearing the cost of not having the thing that was yours.
In any circumstance, someone must pay. Because all forgiveness is costly. It’s easy to picture with tangible things that have a monetary cost. But it’s also true with forgiveness.
Forgiving a wrong is costly. And the greater the wrong, the higher the cost. If someone is 20 minutes late for a meeting, that’s annoying, but a pretty small cost. If someone hurts you or someone you love, that forgiveness comes at a much greater cost.
There’s nothing the man who killed Charlie Kirk can ever do to undo what he has done. There’s nothing he can do to earn her forgiveness, there’s no way he can pay her back or make it right.
The only way he could be forgiven by Erika Kirk was for her to freely give it. Because of hate, she senselessly lost her husband less than two weeks ago. Her children lost their father.
It’s easy to understand why she would hate that man. To many, that feeling would be totally justified. But she responds with forgiveness.
Forgiveness is striking.
The Bible says that all sin and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We all sin against God in the things that we do that we shouldn’t do. We sin in the things that we should do but don’t do. It’s not just occasional. We sin as a habit, as a way of life, as a matter of course. We could never earn forgiveness from a holy God.
The gospel is that Jesus paid the price for our sin on the cross. That there was no way for us to earn our forgiveness, or to pay for it. And so he bore the cost himself by absorbing the penalty that we deserved.
To some, the cross is foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18). To others, it is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16-17).
Hatred for that man might have been understandable. Forgiveness for him is glorious.
In the Gospel of Luke, as Jesus is being crucified, he asks God to forgive his killers when he says “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
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