Forgive Us Our Trespasses

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Corrie ten Boom lived with her sister Betsie and her father Casper in Haarlem, Netherlands where they had a watchmaking shop, above which was the home in which they lived. In the late 1930s, with the rise of Nazi Germany, the first shadow fell over Europe. As Corrie said, “Nobody dreamed this tiny cloud would grow until it blocked out the sky.” Then the unthinkable happened. Despite Holland’s neutral status, the Nazis invaded Haarlem in 1940, bringing the war to the tens Booms’ doorstep. Overnight, the city was filled with fear. Associations were banned. Food was rationed and in short supply. Soldiers marched through the streets. Neighbor betrayed neighbor, seeking favor from the occupying army. Worst of all, Jewish friends were persecuted, arrested, or forced to flee. Corrie and her family stepped in to help, putting their faith into action. “Father knew so well how to comfort people,” Corrie said. “And he loved the Jews.” By this time, Casper, who was called, “Haarlem’s Grand Old Man,” was over eighty. Corrie and Betsie were in their fifties. But age was no obstacle to the ten Booms when it came to helping people escape from prison or worse. They became part of the Dutch Resistance, a secret network dedicated to saving people from the Nazi’s.

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In 1942, a woman escaping the Gestapo sought sanctuary with the ten Booms and the “Hiding Place” was born. Over the next several years, Corrie, along with Betsie and her father Casper, helped about eight hundred men, women, and children escape, concealing them in a tiny closet called the “Angel crib,” when raids came. Eight adults could barely fit, if they stood close together. “The Hiding Place” was often called the happiest address in the Dutch underground. Haarlem’s streets might be empty and grim, but within the ten Boom home, there was music and laughter and prayer. However, on February 28, 1944, betrayed by a fellow Dutchman, the entire family, including Corrie’s aged father, was arrested along with Bible study attendees unfortunate enough to be at the house. A total of thirty people were imprisoned that day. Amazingly, despite searching every inch of the apartment and store, the soldiers did not find the hiding place. The people inside managed to escape a few days later. Before they were taken away to prison, Betsie pointed to a plaque by the fireplace, “Jesus is Victor,” it read. To the natural eye, the Gestapo had won. But God had His hand on them. Soon after their father died in prison while Corrie and Betsie were taken to the German concentration camp in Ravensbruck where Betsie died just before Christmas.  Yet, on the last day of 1944 Corrie was miraculously released from the Camp. Her mission was not yet accomplished.

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It was in a church in Munich where I was speaking in 1947 that I saw him - a balding heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat, the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones.

Memories of the concentration camp 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 of skin.

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, fraulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!"

It was the first time since my release that I had been 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. 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. Fraulein - "again the hand came out - "will you forgive me?"

And I stood there - and could not. Betsie had died in that place - could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?

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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."

Still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. "Jesus, help me!" 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 former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.

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In the Our Father we pray “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” If we refuse to forgive others then we block the forgiveness of God from getting into our hearts. Why is this? Because we have put up a barricade made from our pride, our misguided judgment and condemnation of others, our anger, our resentment. In order to forgive others we must first remove the barricade to our heart – the pride, anger, condemnation and resentment – and this opens up the way for God to pour in His forgiveness and healing mercy.

So – if we want to be forgiven – then we must clear a path by forgiving others first.

Can you forgive those you hate on the left and the right?