“Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
    wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” Psalm 51:7

If we were perfect people, we would never need to be forgiven.   Our hearts would always be pure, our words sensitive and compassionate, spoken with great wisdom and heard in the measure we had hoped.   We would never hold a grudge, cause injury or harm to another, or speak unkindly about a person we disagree with.

If we were perfect people, there would be nothing in our past that caused us shame or guilt.  From our earliest years, we’d  have acted and spoken with prudence, and expressed love to some of the least lovable people in our lives.  Our patience would be gargantuan in size, while tested in the fires of affliction.  In our perfect moral lives, we would have made no  mistakes, misrepresented reality, or cast aspersions on another, to cover our own flaws.

Unfortunately, over a lifetime, we discover that even our best attempts at perfection, can fail.  Moments of frustration  unleash words that settle as swords on a co-worker.  Temptation traps us, until we don’t understand how we  arrived where we are.  There is a deep yearning in us, to be washed clean of yesterday’s errors, and given a fresh start.

Jeremiah’s message to a people in exile, was there is a place of forgiveness.  God’s plan is not to harbor anger, but to love, for God intends grace,  “No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,”for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD;for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” Jeremiah 31:34

Bruce G. Boak, in  reflecting on God’s promise,   says of  God.*”God’s strategy is to practice divine amnesia, an amnesia rooted in forgiveness and forgetting, for in forgetting and forgiving God gives optimistic opportunity. God sees that forgiving allows for mistakes and offense, but forgetting places their remembrance behind, so that they can no longer be a barrier to relationship. God sees that forgiving informs another about the removal of grudges but that forgetting halts the continual negative references. God sees that forgiving accepts sincere regret but forgetting releases harbored anger and hurt. God sees that forgiveness receives apology and accepts blame but forgetting closes wounds and fades scars. God sees that forgiveness soothes disgust and disappointment but forgetting builds determination to deter such distress in the future. God sees that forgiveness is an act of compassion prompting worth and value in another but forgetting is an act of love that reinforces the desire that the relationship not be broken. So God chose to be amnesiac and mercifully to forgive.”

*Bartlett, David L.; Taylor, Barbara Brown. Feasting on the Word— Year C, Volume 4: Season after Pentecost 2,  (Feasting on the Word: Year C) . Presbyterian Publishing Corporation.