My son Andrew is eight years old. He is the same age as Martin William Richard, the young victim of the pressure cooker bombs that exploded during the Boston Marathon earlier this week. Bombs that tore into the crowds who gathered to cheer on family and friends. Bombs that have left us, once again, searching for answers and counting up victims. It was a race that started with a moment of silence for the victims of the Sandyhook Elementary School shooting, and ended in another massacre that requires memorializing of its own. Like you, I am exhausted by the darkness. I am tired of the violence. I am emotionally and spiritually drained. And many days I am simply angry.

I am angry at senseless crimes and unspeakable evil leveled at the innocent and unarmed. And I am angry that in the midst of many peoples’ pain, the ones they have loved the most often become political pawns for agendas, laws, and policies. It is hard at times for me to remember these victims are human beings, not causes or statements. Their lives are not serendipitous tools in the hands of religious apologists who want to argue about evil and morality. They are not lobbyists for gun control. Martin Richard was an eight year old boy. He was a son, and a brother. He was a child, who is now famous for his creation of a handmade sign that reads, “No more hurting people.”

In honor of Martin Richard, I wanted to share a unique, and I trust, much needed reminder that the light shines in the darkness, can still shone in the darkness and, try as it may, the darkness has not overcome it. Nor will it ever. With so much talk about vengeance, revenge, and justice swelling in my own heart, I took some time to re-read the following story today.  Whenever I need to be reminded about the power of the gospel, I turn to a wise friend and mentor who has taught me countless truths in the last few years. This is the story of Corrie ten Boom, holocaust survivor, Christian, and victim who learned how to forgive. I trust it might do your own heart well this morning too.

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“It was in a church in Munich that I saw him—a balding, heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives. It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown. ‘When we confess our sins,’ I said, ‘God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. …’

“The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room. And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights; the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor; the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!

[Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp where we were sent.]

“Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: ‘A fine message, Fräulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!’

“And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course—how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?

“But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. I was face-to-face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.

You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk,’ he was saying, ‘I was a guard there.’ No, he did not remember me.

‘But since that time,’ he went on, ‘I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein,’ again the hand came out—’will you forgive me?’

“And I stood there—I whose sins had again and again to be forgiven—and could not forgive. Betsie had died in that place—could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?

“It could not have been many seconds that he stood there—hand held out—but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.

“For I had to do it—I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. ‘If you do not forgive men their trespasses,’ Jesus says, ‘neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.’

“I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality. Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that.

“And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion—I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. ‘… Help!’ I prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.’

“And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

“ ‘I forgive you, brother!’ I cried. ‘With all my heart!’

“For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely, as I did then”

Excerpted from “I’m Still Learning to Forgive” by Corrie ten Boom.

I have shared the following story with a number of students throughout my career. It is about stealing loads of money from Mrs. Tonry.

I worked for a couple years on the Tonry Tree Farm throughout some frigid NH winters during the busy holiday season. I worked with several of my high-school friends who enjoyed competing with each other on a weekly basis to see who could steal the most money through our, unregulated, cash transactions. It was not long before I had joined the party.

I do not know exactly how much money I stuffed into my frozen jean pockets over the years, but I do know that being a thief haunted me. During my first year of seminary a professor shared a story about a friend of his that burned his car because he couldn’t make payments, and then took the insurance money. He wasn’t able to pray again without seeing the burning car in his mind. The madness ended when he finally confessed and wrote a check to the insurance company. This wise seminary prof challenged us to deal with the “burning cars” in our own lives as we prepared to entered ministry. 

So I wrote to Mrs. Tonry.

I confessed, I apologized, I asked for forgiveness and I included a check for $500.00. She was less than impressed with my conversion experience, my repentance, or my new life in Christ. But, it was well with my own soul.

But after the news from some smart folks in Australia, my new question is, did I really need to put myself through all that?

Tyler Okimoto, who's a researcher at the University of Queensland in Australia, along with his colleagues Michael Wenzel and Kyli Hedrick say, I absolutely did not. In fact, their recent research seems to demonstrate that NOT apologizing has as many positive outcomes, maybe even more, as apologizing. They write,  

“Results showed that the act of refusing to apologize resulted in greater self-esteem than not refusing to apologize. Moreover, apology refusal also resulted in increased feelings of power/control and value integrity.”

Shocker. We feel better when we do what we want, not what we should. My kids could have written this paper. 

To me, this was a classic example of the dangers of divorcing faith and science. Faith without science leaves the church burning people at the stake when they suggest that the world might be round, or that the Sun is at the center of the solar system. When science goes it alone, we find psychologists suggesting that it is just as healthy for people to never apologize. A world without the word sorry?

A question that wasn’t raised by the research, and desperately needs to be, is whether or not apologizing, or refusing to do so, has any effect on the victim. Can you imagine for a moment what kind of world it would be if bullies of every stripe, rapists, dictators, abusive parents, rebellious children, murders, tyrant bosses, thieves, cheaters, adulterers, absent fathers…sinners of every kind imaginable, believed that it might be best for their own self esteem if they didn’t look someone in the eye, someone whose life they have crushed in a myriad of ways, and tell them they are sorry?

There are many people I counsel with every week, and many more that I have counseled throughout my life, who have waited a lifetime to hear those words. They would tell these researches that no amount of neurological scientific research would be able to ever quantify what sort of difference it would make to hear the word sorry form their perpetrators. It would mean freedom, it would mean resolve, it would mean moving on, finally. It would mean God is good, He is there, and he has heard their prayers.

For victims everywhere, this time, the researches have it wrong. 

And for those who might be celebrating this news, for the victims you have left in your wake, deal with your burning car today.