And what if someone comes and confesses how they’ve sinned against us … asking you for forgiveness. Is it easy for you to forgive that person and move on? How many times have we told someone that we forgive them only to keep bringing up the past, speaking badly about that person to someone else. If you’re still holding on to anger and resentment toward those who’ve asked for your forgiveness, then you haven’t truly forgiven them and the guilt and consequences of your sin of unforgivness are yours. Forgiveness isn’t so easy, is it?

St. Peter had questions about forgiveness. He wanted to know how many times he should forgive someone who kept sinning against him. “Jesus said to him ‘I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times'”. In saying this, Jesus was telling us that we should never stop forgiving those who sin against us even if they’re repeat offenders. So, as we go through life and interact with other sinful people, we should constantly be repenting and asking for forgiveness from the people we sin against. We should always be forgiving of those who’ve sinned against us: even if they’re compounding their sin by their own unrepentance.

The other aspect of forgiveness is our very real need for God’s forgiveness. In our Old Testament Reading, the Prophet Micah lays out how desperate our sinful human condition really is by telling us how God wants us to be … which has the negative effect of showing us just how rebellious against our Creator we are. The Prophet says: “[God] has told you … what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice … and to love kindness … and to walk humbly with your God?”

God has told us to ‘do justice’: to be honest, truthful, faithful – without any deceit in our hearts. Can you say that about yourself? Can any of us?

We’re also told that we should ‘love kindness.’ And ‘kindness’ here is the Hebrew word that is better translated ‘steadfast love’ – the kind of merciful and self-sacrificial love that God has for us – love that’s most clearly seen in God sending His only-begotten Son to shed His blood for the sins of the world. Do we give that much of ourselves to the people in our lives? Are you willing to be ridiculed, beaten, flogged, wounded and crucified for your loved ones? … How about for those who’ve sinned against you like we sin against God?

And we’re told ‘to walk humbly’ with God. In other words, every moment of our lives should be spent in due reverence and submission to God’s will: striving to conform every one of our thoughts, words, and deeds to the 10 Commandments while knowing that we’re completely dependent on Him not only for the things we need in this life – our daily bread – but also for our salvation from sin and death which is a debt that’s so great that we could never repay it to God by our own works.

Beloved in Christ, we are completely unable to settle our debt of sin with God by what we do, or think, or say. No sacrifice that we could possibly make can make us right with God. That’s the point of the Prophet Micah’s rhetorical questions that we just heard:
“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
Where our justification – our right standing with God – is concerned, nothing we can say, nothing we can do, nothing we can offer can settle our account of sin with God. We are dead in our trespasses and sins and have nothing to offer God in and of ourselves which is exactly why the Psalmist in today’s Introit cried out: “If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?”

So back to Jesus’ parable: “the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants”. In this parable, God is the king, we are the servants, and the account that needs to be settled is our debt of sin.

“When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents”: a debt that no one could possibly pay back in a lifetime. In the parable, this massive debt shows us where we stand with God on account of our sinfulness. The debt of our sin is so vast, that we can’t possibly repay it no matter how hard we try.

“So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything'”. He cried out for mercy, because he knew how bad off he was. But even in crying out for mercy, he’s still under the wrong impression that he’ll somehow get himself out of this mess and repay what he owes.

It reminds me of the Prodigal Son who, when returning to his father, thought that he’d make things right by working as one of his Father’s hired servants. Our sinful flesh is always trying to go it alone instead of relying on God’s grace, mercy, and compassion for us.

“And out of pity for Him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt”. This is the Gospel. It’s the Good News that God comforts us with after showing us just how great our debt of sin is. The servant had no way of paying the debt he owed to his king and knowing this, he cried out for the master’s patience and forbearance. And what did the master do? He just forgave it. The servant was freed from the burden that was looming over him. And this is the free and full forgiveness that is ours on account of Christ’s grace and mercy toward us. In spite of our vast debt of sin, God – in His steadfast love – sent His only-begotten Son to take on human flesh and die on the cross for the entire debt of sin that the world owed so that God could say to you – ‘go in peace, your debt of sin has been forgiven.’

Now, there’s also a warning in this parable for those of us who’ve had our debt of sin forgiven. The servant, who’d just been forgiven an enormous debt, then went out and wasn’t merciful and forgiving to someone who owed him a much smaller debt. His refusal to forgive the one who begged him for mercy brought him right back under the condemnation of God’s Law as our Lord’s parable warns: “And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.”

By His death and resurrection, Christ has won for us the full and free forgiveness of all our sins.

When the burden of our sins is revealed to us by God’s Holy Law and in our complete helplessness we cry out for mercy and relief, Christ our King and Master authoritatively declares that our debt has been paid for and our sins are forgiven. Then in Christian love, and as those who live in and from our forgiveness in Christ, we are called to forgive others as Jesus said elsewhere: “If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt 6:14-15). This is part of what St. Paul referred to as “the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God”.

God has promised that in Christ there is forgiveness. He pours out His love, mercy, and forgiveness on you personally through His Word and Sacraments: making you are partaker of His divine grace. And He promises that, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” As we await that day, we pray that we would be led by Christ’s Word and Spirit to repent of our debts, forgive as we have been forgiven, and trust firmly Christ’s steadfast promises of forgiveness and salvation even as we also pray “that [our] love may abound more and more”.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.