"... As Christ hung on the cross being crucified, He cried out to the Father to forgive his persecutors. This sort of forgiveness isn't an act of forgetting or pretending that their sin didn't occur, it is ongoing as he made this plea, he was then being crucified. Rather, this sort of forgiveness feels, extremely keenly, the nails and the pains caused by our sin, but yet, even as Christ felt the excruciating effects of our sin, it is not a sedation of the experience of our sin or a deliberate amnesia, but it is the sort of forgiveness that acknowledges fully the realities of our sin and evil, and looking squarely at our fallen state while on the cross, says, "Yes, you are killing me, but that doesn't mean its over between us. I forgive you. I still love you."
Christ is saying here that His love can overcome the wrongs which we do, that his resources for love will never run out, that, it is strong to cope with our sin, to continue to build relationship with us, to create a future for us, despite our destructiveness. This sort of forgiveness is fully realistic about our sin and fallen nature. It looks at it fully, and says deliberately, yes, there can be a future relationship even after this, that your past, it will not impede my love, it will not cease my work of creating a new future for you.
And the Resurrection of Christ vindicates fully, that there is a future for us to have a relationship with God, despite us killing him, it cannot destroy his love, which returns to us from the empty tomb, and continues to forgive and love us.
This sort of forgiveness frees us to accept ourselves completely, without illusions and with wholeness. Guaranteed and assured by God's promise of a future, no matter our past, we are liberated from the need to explain or rewrite or forget our past, because we know that there will be a future, no matter what has happened.
This is also the sort of forgiveness that gives us hope, hope of a future, as God's forgiveness fully acknowledges and accepts our sinful past, and still promises that his love can create new dimensions to the relationship, new depths and new possibilities for the future. Which is why forgiveness is a matter of faith, a matter of belief, it is a trust that God can bring about a future, despite sin, and that he can continue to create and renew our relationship, despite the past. ..."
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