As part of Lipscomb University’s Summer Celebration, many speakers were on Lipscomb’s campus this past week speaking on a variety of spiritual topics. Thursday morning, Hillsboro Church of Christ minister Daniel Hope spoke on the topic of forgiveness.
Hope’s lesson began by mentioning a number of highly-publicized tragedies, and how those involved displayed great forgiveness after enduring very traumatizing events. He mentioned the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II, and described the Pope’s forgiveness of the shooter just days after leaving the hospital. Hope also mentioned a deadly shooting within an Amish community in 2006, and how the community came together to setup a fund for the gunmen’s children. An act which provided a great deal of healing for the shooter’s devastated family.
These acts of forgiveness are often times not displayed on a large-scale by Christians, but Hope reminded the audience that Jesus himself told Paul to forgive a transgressor 77 times before giving up on another.
Hope’s lesson was one which dove into a number of questions relating to forgiveness which Christians can often struggle with. He tackled tough questions and provided a response that forgiveness is not about forgetting an act or the absence of hurt, but rather it is about forgiving an unpayable debt.
“Forgiveness is a decision and journey,” Hope said. “It is a commitment to the process of ceasing to demand restitution.”
Part of this decision and journey is that one must work to get to a point where they can get over bitterness. “One cannot take sin more lightly than God, because sin is a big deal, and we must not let people think sin is ok,” Hope added.
The most poignant example Hope offered was the story of former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon, Larry Trapp, a neo-Nazi who constantly beleaguered a Jewish family that moved into Trapp’s Lincoln, Neb. neighborhood. Hope explained that Trapp harassed the family through threatening messages and anti-Semitic mailings, but that the family showed Trapp forgiveness over and over. Eventually reaching the point where he renounced his beliefs of hatred, and became so close with the family that he moved in with them as his health deteriorated.
Speaking to soon-to-be MTSU freshman, Beau Hallavant, after the lesson, he spoke highly of the experience Summer Celebration offers.
“I love the entire environment and experience Lipscomb offers through their incredible speakers,” said Hallavant. “I was not a Christian when I began attending three years ago, but summer celebration changed me.”