A+B=We(ntzel)

Ephesians 1:7
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace”

Last night I sat huddled with three of my Young Life girls between piles of pillows on the floor for “cozy night” at our Bible study. We nestled ourselves in blankets and down comforters, drank peppermint hot chocolate, ate warm cookies, and talked about bitterness. Yep, bitterness. A great topic for “cozy night”. Talk about a dichotomy. The true topic of the night was forgiveness, but what stemmed from it was the theme of bitterness that so often rules in our hearts in place of forgiveness.

I showed the girls two video clips—music videos from songs that, in my mind, accurately portray the binary of forgiveness in the mind of our culture and forgiveness as Jesus Christ describes it (“Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others” Col. 3:13).

Lately, many unfortunate memories from my past have been resurfaced—a reawakening of the wounds that I was sure were sealed by this point, and along with them, a resurgence of bitterness. The ugly thing about bitterness is that it does nothing to “fix” the person you are bitter towards—it only eats away at your own heart while the other person smoothly carries on with their life, unaware. In dealing with my own bitterness and struggle to forgive, I have been acutely aware of the way our culture encourages us to harbor bitterness, bottle pain, and stay angry forever. It certainly seems the natural thing to do. The first music video I showed the girls, “Apologize” by One Republic (featuring Timbaland) honestly portrays the destructive affects of bitterness with the repeated message written in the lyrics “It’s too late to apologize”. The video has incredible imagery. Objects symbolic of things eternal keep flashing on the screen—doves, a bride and groom, a wedding band—and all throughout the video they are continually spinning on a circular wheel. By the end of the video, all of these objects are destroyed—the bride and groom catch fire, a vase of water that was “preserving” a bouquet of flowers turns black and the flowers wither. The entire scene is laced with the repetitive phrase, “It’s too late to apologize.” Too late. The dark ink of bitterness has already spilt and ruined all that it has encountered.

The second music video, “I’m Not Who I Was” by Brandon Heath, has a drastically different tone and message from the beginning. Where “Apologize” is filled with a pounding musical angst, the melody of “I’m Not Who I Was” overwhelms the listener/viewer with a sense of lighthearted relief. It is gentle, smooth, and soothing. And of course, it is filled with the message of God’s forgiveness contrary to the bitterness of this world. The lines at the closing of the song say it all, “Well the thing I find most amazing/In Amazing Grace/ Is the chance to give it out/ Maybe that’s what love is all about.” There is this overarching theme of our lives being touched by the wonderful bliss of Christ’s love and forgiveness—the only natural response is to spill over with that same love and forgive others who have wronged us. The result? We can look back in laughter saying, “Wow, I’m not who I was!” Those who have been forgiven much, love much (Luke 7:36-8:3).

One video ending in combustion, fire and destruction; the other ending with release and a smile. Beautiful art that gives sign to the power of living the countercultural way—Christ’s way.

I posted the links of the two videos for you to watch yourself. Be blessed!

Ephesians 4:32
“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ePyRrb2-fzs ("Apologize")

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZpOLyR8MwiA ("I'm Not Who I Was")