Why sorry goes well with Christmas

Sometime this year, I had the privilege of listening to a very interesting and thought provoking “lecture” by the well- known author Andy Stanley.

In his message, Stanley asked his audience about how they felt after they confessed to a priest or to a preacher about a sin or some hurt that they caused others. As expected everyone in the audience expressed relief or a sense of freedom after they talked about what they did to someone in their face or behind someone’s back.

That in fact is a universal behavior of people worldwide, particularly men. But needless to say it is generally dishonest. Unable to take full responsibility for our mistakes or our sins, we find it almost impossible or extremely difficult to simply walk up to a person we hurt or betrayed, and confess our guilt or ask for forgiveness.

More often than not we then settle for the next best thing by confessing and asking for absolution from our pastors, father confessors or a priest. Outside of the “real sins”, we express our regrets or mistakes to confidants or close friends…..but never to the party we injured, we hurt or betrayed.

Once we have unburdened ourselves, we all think that everything is fixed. Or is it? Andy Stanley accurately touched on a nerve by pointing out or asking, “If all is suppose to be confessed and forgiven, why then do our stomachs turn in the presence of the people we betrayed or offended?”

Is it because after all our efforts at “alternative confession”, we all know that we still have not fixed things with the right people, the hurt people, the innocent people?

You can go to the confessional for every single sin you commit everyday or you can seek out your pastor day in and day out. But until you get things right with the people you offended, nothing will be right. Every time you see them the guilt and the offense will be there, until you set things straight.

Unfortunately, in order to set things right we must first see the sin ourselves and second we must understand and learn from the pain it causes. Whether you are the sinner or the victim we all suffer from the pain in one form or another.

It is not merely a matter of being right or wrong or who is right and who is wrong. It is about making things right.

When President Cory Aquino “apologized” to President Joseph Estrada she clearly spoke from the depths of her personal experience as a victim of politics, of Martial Law, as a victim of humiliation, and perhaps even more importantly someone no longer burdened or affected by pretentions and political correctness.

Not very long ago, President Cory encountered yet another defining moment in her journey. To be confronted by your mortality and the power of disease to lay waste your very existence. In this context, saying sorry before it’s too late takes an even bigger significance.

As a former President, Cory could have opted to be “self-righteous” or take the I am right position. But there is a place in our lives where the values of the soul and the feelings of the heart leave behind imaginings and social dictates. It is a place where God speaks to us of loving our neighbor in spite of what we see them to be or think they are.

In the context of Andy Stanley’s message, how could Cory Aquino continue to shake hands or be in the presence of Joseph Estrada unless she set things straight? Right or wrong, politics or opinion, it was about healing the hurt and not about changing history. There are many things we do that are either right or wrong depending on those affected. The Cory - Estrada reconciliation was about healing the hurt. That was certainly a very right thing to do.

For her personal decision and her personal statement, Cory was harshly criticized by a few who in the first place had no business in what was a personal matter.

I guess it was expected considering that the most critical were also some of the most emotionally bitter, or politically compromised. They remind me of some characters in the crucifixion of Christ, who were accusing Christ of crimes against Caesar or the Roman Empire but in reality they wanted Christ to be crucified because he became a threat to the power, the popularity, and the business of the Jewish religious leaders.

If asking for forgiveness or saying sorry is the spiritual medicine for Cory and Erap, bitterness on the other hand is the poison that drives men blind. Like venom bitterness paralyzes them from moving on. They spend their energy focused on the offense and the injustice and the sin done to them. But they fail to realize that the poison of bitterness has turned them into the very creature they hate and hunt.

Unfortunately, bitter people don’t realize that they are the only ones involved in the situation, their enemies are often clueless or don’t waste time thinking of them. They become prisoners of their unexpressed wrath, victims of their own spiritual venom.

When I showed this article to my friend Sam Liuson, he reminded me of the popular saying, “forgiveness is like setting a prisoner free, only to discover in time that the prisoner was you”.

I thank God especially at this time of the year that God did not spend his energy in anger and in bitterness. I thank God that each day I can say “sorry” and every time I do so, it’s nobody else’s business. I thank God that he healed me of my bitterness. I thank God most especially because with his Son our Lord Jesus Christ I was set free.

Christmas and sorry is simply an exchange gift with God. We give him our sorry’s and he gives us his forgiveness through Jesus Christ. That’s a gift, not a mistake.