During my years as a pastor, I’ve witnessed a range of situations in which people confess they cannot forgive: the man who was abused as a child, the wife of an alcoholic husband. They’re undoubtedly right, apart from Jesus. Because God alone can fully heal our wounds and revive the dead, we need him to move our hearts to forgive. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). God calls us to do likewise, nearly impossible as it may seem. When this kind of mercy appears, our merciless world sits up and takes notice.

Editors’ note: “Difficult but Beautiful Doctrines” is a long-form series that draws readers’ attention to the glory and necessity of theological truths people in the post-Christian West often find hard to accept.
Last year, Vito Perrone was formally offered the job to lead the public schools of Easthampton, Massachusetts. Perrone was well qualified as the former Easthampton High School principal and as the interim superintendent of schools in nearby West Springfield.
Unfortunately for Perrone, he sent an email to the school committee over contract negotiations that caused an uproar. Perrone’s sin? He addressed the women as “ladies,” which he meant as a sign of respect. However, this was deemed an unforgivable microaggression. Perrone was told that “the fact that he didn’t know that as an educator was a problem.”
The job offer was rescinded.
In recent years, the minefields of cancel culture have blown up on formerly anonymous school officials as well as on well-known figures like J. K. Rowling and journalist Kevin Williamson. As New York Times columnist Ross Douthat observed, “Cancellation, properly understood, refers to an attack on someone’s employment and reputation by a determined collective of critics, based on an opinion or an action that is alleged to be disgraceful and disqualifying.”
Cancellation is possible these days for anyone who commits actions or makes statements that one group or another considers beyond the pale. But what happens when cancel culture meets the breathtaking mercy of God’s kingdom?
Cancel Culture’s Perilous Cliff
Our merciless moment reminds me of Les Misérables, the 19th-century classic by Victor Hugo, and especially of the character Javert, who weaponized his narrow interpretation of justice. Hugo wrote, “[Police inspector Javert] had nothing but disdain, aversion, and disgust for all who had once overstepped the bounds of the law.” He sought to cancel all transgressors—especially the former convict Jean Valjean.
Javert’s greatest strength was his biggest weakness. Driven by a Pharisee-like commitment to the letter of the law, he couldn’t overlook the slightest infraction. “Though Javert’s toe-the-line mentality is often appropriate and admirable,” writes Bob Welch, “it becomes a millstone for him—and society at large—when used without restraint.”
Our cancel culture has brought us to the same perilous cliff. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said, “A society which is based on the letter of the law and never reaches any higher is taking very scarce advantage of the high level of human possibilities.”
Worse, the merciless approach of cancel culture drives us away from what sinful people like you and me most need: mercy.
Seemingly Impossible Forgiveness
God’s kingdom provides a surer foundation. As the Lord said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” (Matt. 5:7). It sounds simple, but the implications should awe us.
Peter once asked Jesus, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” (18:21). Peter was proud of his far-reaching forgiveness, having exceeded the accepted norm. But Jesus famously responded, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy seven times” (v. 22). The lavish extent of divine mercy almost seems irresponsible.
During my years as a pastor, I’ve witnessed a range of situations in which people confess they cannot forgive: the man who was abused as a child, the wife of an alcoholic husband. They’re undoubtedly right, apart from Jesus. Because God alone can fully heal our wounds and revive the dead, we need him to move our hearts to forgive.
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Life is fragile and all too brief. According to the Psalmist, our lifetimes are a “mere breath.” We may perhaps live into our seventies or eighties “by reason of strength,” but our experience is generally full of “toil and trouble” (Ps. 39:5; Ps. 90:10). Sometimes life leaves you weeping in the dark. In such moments of misery, we cry out to a Father who cares about our pain, who invites us into his presence to express our concerns (Matt. 7:7–11; 1 Pet. 5:7).

The doctor said, “The child has severe hemophilia.” In the crib looking up at me with charming brown eyes lay a beautiful baby boy. A “severe” hemophiliac. My son. Emotions swirled. “Are you sure?” I asked, feeling helpless. “Yes,” he responded.
Much of life happens before you are ready. Our hearts race and our minds search for meaning, but some circumstances resist explanation. So it was for me on that day, surrounded by the beeping ambience of the neonatal unit. Powerless, I simply stood and watched.
However, despair is not the end of the story. It is simply the occasion when our spiritual senses are awakened to behold new, life-giving dimensions of God’s presence. In Jesus’s words, “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.”
The shocking, even scandalous, ring to this statement hits you in the face. Blessed? How can Jesus possibly say that those who mourn are blessed? In her book On Death and Dying, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Nowhere in her list are blessed and comfort. But perhaps they should be.
Life in the kingdom, after all, is not about striving for happiness or avoiding the ills of human existence that bring us face to face with mourning. It’s about receiving and finding, even amid the pain and suffering of life (Eph. 1:3; James 1:17). “Blessed” is therefore not an achievement, an attitude, or an emotion. It is the tangible gift of God’s loving embrace, an identity in Christ that experiences life as it ought to be—even when we mourn.
In the months leading up to Angela’s delivery, I was a seminarian teaching Matthew’s Gospel in Sunday school. My wife, great with child, sat in the front listening attentively. One morning, I introduced my students to a concept called the “upsilon vector.”
A Counterintutive Pattern
Upsilon is a Greek letter that looks like the English capital U (or like a Y when it’s capitalized). Its contours trace the trajectory of Jesus’s experience in terms of his descent into apparent defeat (suffering and dying on the cross) before ascending three days later in consummate victory (in the resurrection). It is the counterintuitive pattern of Christian life that my seminary professor, Royce Gruenler, outlined when he stated, “We can expect to follow the same path of defeat and death, victory and resurrection.”
We observe the upsilon’s ironic pattern in nature, from the changing of the seasons to the kernel of wheat that falls to the ground and dies before it produces fruit. It’s also found in the great stories of antiquity, as when Persephone must first descend into the underworld and marry Hades before spring can be reborn.
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Despair and Hope
After seventeen years of pastoral ministry, I have observed a common thread in the various desires of men and women. It’s not the accumulation of wealth, the pleasure of passion, or accolades from achievement that ultimately satisfies. It goes much deeper. People need hope in something that is solid and lasting, and they despair when they have no hope.
Despair and False Hope
The great English journalist and satirist Malcolm Muggeridge reflected on human desire, noting certain forms of despair in the twentieth century, particularly among supporters of Stalin in Russia and Western nihilists devoted to materialism. From his analysis, Muggeridge concluded that modern man has a “suicidal impulse”—a type of self-hatred. This impulse has spawned a bewildering number of proposals to cure, or at least curb, man’s despair of himself. Unfortunately, varied and complex as they are, these remedies have a common thread: their ingenuity and power are limited to merely human resources.
One merely human remedy for overcoming despair is an emotive positive outlook excavated from the depths of one’s soul. This thinking is reflected in well-known phrase “hoping against hope.” It often comes in the midst of calamity and disappointment. In spite of misfortune, we “hope” things will go well. The actor Josh Hartnett captured this notion when he said: “Hope is the most exciting thing in life, and if you honestly believe that love is out there, it will come. And even if it doesn’t come straightaway, there is still that chance all through your life that it will.”
Well-meaning as this attempt is, it is a long distance from the biblical vision of hope. It is not a matter of delivering ourselves or “hoping for the best.” Nor is it wishful thinking or blind optimism. Biblical hope, rather, is a divine gift that God offers to the world through His Son, Jesus. This, however, raises the question of how one recognizes and receives such a gift.