I Can't Remember

Casting the raggedy labels of sin aside

Some people quietly struggle with the notion that they need God’s grace. What have I done that requires a Savior? I’m a good guy. I keep the law. I have no addictions or hang-ups. Perhaps they even go to church and pretend, while never actually believing, that they are sinners. These folks struggle to truly celebrate grace because pretend sin only calls for pretend grace. So, what is there to really get excited about?

I’m not one of those guys. For years, I carried my past sin around with me like a sack of bricks. At times, the weight buckled my knees, leaving me spiritually and emotionally exhausted, lonely, and immobilized. Other times, it was as if the bottom of the sack ripped, spilling and scattering my guilt in fits of moodiness, drunkenness, frustration, and even rage.

My only relief was to justify my sin by thinking, everyone does it. But if I followed that logic, it left me somewhat paranoid and untrusting of others. Why would I trust people who did the kinds of things I had done?

My unwillingness or inability to forgive myself left me captive in my self-made cage.

Even as “a Christian,” I projected my own broken perspective of my sin on Jesus. Perhaps Jesus could forgive me in the same way my grandmother might, but I had broken his heart. Certainly, my sin would be the first thing he saw when he looked at me. He would always give me that bless your heart look that said, Yeah, I promised to love you… but you’ve pushed the limits, and I’ve got my eye on you.

I figured if Jesus knew the worst things I had done, he’d label me with them as surely as everyone else did.

Grace was, at best, a crutch… allowing me to hobble, broken and compromised into eternity under the skeptical gaze of one who may have wondered, I did all that for him?

But that’s not the Jesus I came to know. In his classic book, The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning shares this story to illustrate the love of the Jesus I now know:

“Several years ago, in a large city in the far West, rumors spread that a certain Catholic woman was having visions of Jesus. The reports reached the archbishop. He decided to check her out. There is always a fine line between the authentic mystic and the lunatic fringe.

“Is it true, ma’am, that you have visions of Jesus?” asked the cleric. “Yes,” the woman replied simply. “Well, the next time you have a vision, I want you to ask Jesus to tell you the sins that I confessed in my last confession.” The woman was stunned. “Did I hear you right, bishop? You actually want me to ask Jesus to tell me the sins of your past?” “Exactly. Please call me if anything happens.”

Ten days later the woman notified her spiritual leader of a recent apparition. “Please come,” she said. Within the hour the archbishop arrived. He trusted eye-to-eye contact. “You just told me on the telephone that you actually had a vision of Jesus. Did you do what I asked?” “Yes, bishop, I asked Jesus to tell me the sins you confessed in your last confession.” The bishop leaned forward with anticipation. His eyes narrowed. “What did Jesus say?” She took his hand and gazed deep into his eyes. “Bishop,” she said, “these are His exact words: ‘I CAN’T REMEMBER.’”

Jesus did not face unspeakable heartache and physical pain to simply invite us to hobble into eternity wearing the labels of our worst sins. Revelation 19 describes the church, those who have known and trusted God’s love, as wearing “fine linen, bright, and clean.” On the cross, Christ paid an unfathomable price for the raggedy labels of our sins to be cast aside. He has not only forgiven. He has chosen to forget.

If Jesus chose to forget the junk of my past, why am I still dwelling on it?

And if I can forget my own sin, how do I choose to forget the sins of others?

Is my memory, and my choice to hang-on, the junk from which this prodigal must turn to know & experience God’s love?

Lord, help me to follow your lead, forgiving myself & forgetting my sins to press forward toward you, and help me to forgive & forget the sins of others as I have forgiven & forgotten my own.

Manning, Brennan. The Ragamuffin Gospel (pp. 118-119). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.