Love and forgiveness without limit

Posted by admin on Mar 23, 2010 in Issues & Ideas | 0 comments

According to Jesus, the amount of love that we, as Christians, show our neighbours must have no limitations. To defend this, one may look at two interchangeable concepts in the Bible: The first concept is the second greatest commandment, “Love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). The second concept is that of unlimited forgiveness; where Jesus states that a person should forgive his or her neighbour “not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:22).

These concepts may seem foreign – maybe even impossible – to most of the population of Canada; however, the contrast between the standard of love in Canada and other places in the world such as Rwanda is staggering.

According to the New York Times, “In 100 days in 1994…7 out of 10 of Rwanda’s Tutsis were wiped out with a brutal efficiency.” It seems the Hutus placed no limitations upon the brutality that they delivered to the Tutsi population.

Tutsis were hacked to death with machetes and shot with machine guns. The depravity, brutality, wickedness and evil were limitless. Yet the picture of Rwanda is much different today than it was in 1994.

As Christianity is the main religion in Rwanda, the Tutsis try their best to remember that even when Jesus Christ was hanging on the cross with nails in His palms and feet, he called out, “Forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

What makes this type of forgiveness even more exceptional is the fact that 50,000 of the Hutu murderers have been released back into Rwanda’s population and are literally neighbours to the Tutsis.

Theo Mushinzimana, the Rwanda based director for Rwanda Partners (RP), a Seattle-based ministry “dedicated to working for Rwanda’s healing and reconciliation,” stated that, “any reconciliation in Rwanda is a result of a biblical process that brings perpetrators and victims together at the foot of the Cross.”

Nyirindekwe Celestin, a Rwandan Anglican priest, continues this thought by adding, “It’s very hard to forgive a killer. It takes power from above to transform a person. Our main focus isn’t to tell people to forgive, but to accept Jesus as their Saviour, and let him transform you. Only then can you forgive.”

It is this remarkable forgiveness coupled with love that the Rwandans have shown the world; an interchangeable and limitless forgiveness that flows from God into humans.