“But that’s not fair,” Billy said, fighting back tears. “He doesn’t deserve to be forgiven.” Billy’s face was scratched and his elbow was bleeding as he sat in the pastor’s office. He was right. Joey had started it. He pushed Billy down during a game at vacation Bible school. Joey said he was sorry, but that didn’t make what he did okay.
“He doesn’t deserve to be forgiven,” Billy repeated. Billy was right. Think about the bully who was mean to you, the teacher who was unfair to you, or your sister who lied about you to your parents. None of them deserve to be forgiven.
Joseph’s brothers didn’t deserve to be forgiven. They were cruel to him. They planned to kill him and then sold him into slavery. Because of his brothers, Joseph spent years as a slave in Egypt and then many more as a prisoner in a dark dungeon. Now Joseph held a powerful position in Egypt—and his brothers’ lives were in his hands. They begged him not to punish them. It wasn’t fair.
But do we really want what is fair? Fair means getting what we deserve. Because of our sins, we deserve God’s punishment forever in hell.
We don’t want fair; we want mercy.
And that’s exactly what God gives us. God did not ignore our sins. In his great mercy, Jesus suffered what wasn’t fair in our place so we could be forgiven. Forgiveness is never fair. Fair would mean that we would suffer the punishment Jesus suffered for us.
But God has treated us in the most wonderfully unfair way. He forgives us, even though we don’t deserve it. Forgiving someone does not mean pretending that the wrong was okay or that there should never be consequences. It is mercy we share because God first showed mercy to us. And when we see God’s undeserved, unfair, unending forgiveness for us, it helps us to do the hard work of forgiving others.
That’s how Joseph could forgive his brothers. That’s how Billy could learn to forgive Joey. That’s how you can forgive those who do you wrong, even though they don’t deserve it.
