A Healing Ressurection Message

As this is a time of year that we are often forced to see some who have hurt us, I thought it would be appropriate to share this with you...

Today, the Christian world remembers the hours in which Yeshua (Jesus) was crucified; identifying it as Good Friday. Tonight, the Jewish world celebrates the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb of Redemption and Deliverance in the traditional Seder meal.  As this same reality is honored and observed in two different, but related, ways (according to the level of revelation given both groups), it’s important that we glean the deeper message of the Messiah’s love in being the Lamb of God.  What was foreshadowed in our deliverance from Egypt, was manifested on the cross through Yeshua.

When they came to the place called The Skull, they crucified Him there, along with the criminals, one on His right and the other on His left. 34 Then Yeshua said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke: 23:33-34a

While Yeshua was being nailed to the cross, He asked the Father to forgive those, who were driving in the nails.  These words were spoken AS He was being crucified, not days later; after He was restored.

While people are in the process of hurting us, are WE willing to say, “Father, forgive them … they don’t know what they’re doing?” That’s is exactly what we see happening here with Yeshua. If He is modeling His heart to forgive, and if we are to have a similar heart, doesn’t that mean WE are supposed to be intentional about forgiving someone in the midst of causing US pain? These first words from the cross seems to be a message about the importance of forgiving immediately, rather than delaying until the hurtful deed is past, or until an apology has been given to us.

But what if people know that they are hurting us … what if they are doing it intentionally? Well, the Romans, nailing Yeshua, knew that they were hurting Him.  They did it to cause great agony and to eventually cause His death. But what Yeshua was praying in His words was a deep reality. The people truly did not know that this act of murder was necessary for every sinner to be redeemed back to the Father. They didn’t understand that Yeshua was choosing to suffer and die, so that we could live eternally.  When people personally, intentionally, hurt us, they don’t understand that they are giving us a wonderful opportunity to emulate the heart of the Lord for them, as we too forgive without being asked.

All of us are wounded by others … probably every day.  What do we do with that? Do we accumulate the memories and the pain? Do we wear our suffering as a badge to give us an identity or to gain some form of sympathy or power?  To do that makes a mockery of what the Lord accomplished on the cross.

What is the danger is delaying on extending forgiveness?

Unforgiveness tends to inspire labels, which can be slapped on to those, who hurt us. We label people by what they did… keeping an historical record alive. Sometimes we label ourselves for our failures. In either case the sin, the offense, the failure, or whatever connects someone’s identity with an act that caused pain.  Sadly, satan uses those labels to inflict even more pain; keeping people in the prison of shame and hopelessness or bitterness. Labeling wrongfully gives us permission to keep an unforgiving distance, and to keep a hard heart toward someone, who has personally wounded or offended us.  We feel righteous in holding onto our offense toward that person. That isn't what Yeshua did on the cross.

It’s important that we get healing for those wounds … allowing those bleeding places to heal into scars. Scars are an indication of overcoming … of victory over pain. People will see the scars on us … letting them know that we have been very hurt … but most importantly, they will see the Lord alive in us, in the way that we hold no bitterness from those wounds. People spend many thousands of dollars to erase/hide their scars, but Yeshua wants us to see His. Yeshua told Thomas to put his fingers on the scars from the wounds that He had endured. The nails were gone but the evidence of the scars remained. Yeshua wasn’t bleeding anymore, but He remained visibly scarred. He remains that way today.  It’s very significant to note that Yeshua didn’t show His wounds, but rather His scars. He was no longer being crucified, and He certainly wasn’t blaming the disciples for causing those wounds. He was showing them the scars to say to them, “Look, I have overcome the sin, pain, and death. The nails are gone”. He wasn’t carrying the nails around to create guilt in people. He wasn’t rehashing the torment, and sporting bleeding wounds to promote shame or to illicit an apology. How often do we do that with our wounded places?

There is also the issue of hiding our wounds.  Hiding our wounds from others allows them to ooze, unhealed, in secret. We cover up the hurts on the outside but keep them simmering on the inside. There is a dishonesty in operating this way.  Where wounds are not exposed to the light for healing, forgiveness is not allowed to heal the heart and mind.  Hiding unforgiven hurts in the darkness promotes bitterness and fear to keep a person from becoming whole.

Yeshua arose from the grave after three days, but during those days, He was very busy. During that period of time, His wounds were turning into scars, and prisoners were legally being set free. Sometimes we want immediate healing and get angry when it doesn’t happen. Sometimes there is a higher work to be accomplished in us through a healing process. Sometimes the Lord allows us to walk wounded for a time, so that we will be ready to hear the truth of what He has to say concerning the trial we are walking through. Maybe we need a little time of pain to realize that we can’t sort things out for ourselves and need the Lord to help us. For a while, we may not even be ready to hear what He has to say, because we are so full of our own inflamed soul.

How do we know if our wounds are healed to scars? How do we know if we have truly forgiven someone? If we are touchy, and quick with a hateful response toward someone, we’re not healed.  If we say we have forgiven, but we still want to smack someone, whenever you see him, or whenever we hear her voice, we have not forgiven. We may need to ask the Lord to help us forgive. Often, we will need someone, who has wisdom and the heart of the Lord to counsel us regarding how to let go, especially when someone needs to be held accountable.

Keep in mind, Yeshua didn’t relate all the pain and agony of the crucifixion to His followers after His resurrection.  He didn’t go around declaring, “You are responsible for my pain.”  He came out of the grave free … without bitterness and without hatred … without wanting distance from the sinful humanity for whom His death was required to achieve their redemption from sin. He came out of death, oozing with LOVE … just the same way as He hung suffering on the cross saying, Father, Forgive Them.

Bad things happen. We get wounded. Life hurts. That is part of the human condition in this fallen world. Forgiveness is not about being free from pain, it’s about finding redemption through it and beyond it. Don’t wait for the pain to go away. Apply your faith in the redeeming power of Yeshua; believing that these wounds can become scars … scars, which can be transformed into authority derived from overcoming and forgiving.

There is huge power in forgiveness … even in forgiving ourselves. The power comes when our vision becomes greater than the impact of the wounds. When the Love of the Lord is greater in us than that power of a current, or historical, pain, we can apprehend the authority appointed for us in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. It simply means that whatever held our heart and mind in torment, no longer holds us. The offense is forgiven so that healing draws power from the Source of all Life; giving us power to live fully.

The cross frees us because the Lord forgave US. He did that so that we can forgive ourselves and others.

We don’t choose our pain, but we can choose to let God use it to make us stronger and closer to Him.  Our scars are the proof of His power in our lives. We don’t deny the events that hurt us. We don’t deny the wrong that was/or is being done to us. However, we don’t hand our future over to the pain. In the midst of our pain we too can ask the Lord to forgive. We don’t have to stay stuck and dysfunctional. We don’t have to act out cursory, ineffective, forgiveness.

Yeshua took all  the pain, sin, and horrors of our lives on Himself as His body was nailed to the cross.  Now, He wants us to forgive in the midst of our pain, so that we can move on to what is beyond that pain … which is the redemption of our suffering through walking in the authority that overcomes all manner of evil.

When Yeshua came out of the grave He was free. Nothing held Him. The nails were gone. The love was flowing. Satan had been humiliated and defeated. Now Yeshua wants us to live in the freedom of what He accomplished for our lives on that day of His horrific suffering. The doorway to that freedom is forgiveness. HE is that doorway. Let’s walk through it, as we lift up our wounds before Him to be healed into scars.

Rabbi Don Goldstein
http://1messiah.org