At the beginning of this month, I had the chance to visit Appomattox Court House, the location of the surrender of the Army of the Potomac by Robert E. Lee to Ulysses Grant. The surrender effectively ended the Civil War; though there were other Confederate armies, Lee’s was the most famous and most important. His surrender was acknowledged by everyone to be the death knell of the Confederacy. But what stands out about the event is the graciousness of Grant in his treatment of the defeated, a graciousness that should typify our relations in the world.
A few weeks before that surrender on April 9, 1865, Lincoln had met with the top three military of the Union (Grant, Sherman, Admiral Porter), and Lincoln made it clear that when the South was defeated, the Confederates were to be given generous terms: “Let ‘em up easy,” Lincoln said. This policy was in keeping with what he said in his inaugural address just a couple weeks earlier: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strife on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan - to do all that may achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations…”
Lincoln understood that if you respond with charity (love, forbearance) to hostility, you can prevent (or break) a cycle of violence and hate. If you respond with hate to hate, or anger to anger, the other side feels justified in responding with hostility back, which justifies in your mind a return, and the cycle goes on. But if you respond with kindness, the cycle can be broken. Solomon explains the principle this way in Proverbs 25:21-22: If your enemy is hungry give him food to eat, and if your enemy is thirsty, give him water to drink. For in so doing, you will heap coals of fire on his head, and the LORD will reward you.”
It wouldn’t last, not really. The surrender was on Palm Sunday; Good Friday, five days later, saw Lincoln’s assassination. The North turned angry, the South unrepentant. The South would bitterly resist granting the ex-slaves their rights as citizens; guerrilla warfare would come across the South in acts of violence against blacks who acted on their rights and whites who tried to help them. That’s a story the South would try to bury for a long time, but it’s true.
My point is that Lincoln and Grant tried to break the cycle, even though the South didn’t deserve it, and even though it didn’t last. But they tried to do the right thing, as God gave them to see the right. We aren’t responsible for other’s actions, only our own. We must do what is right. We must show grace to those who don’t deserve it. In fact, that’s the very definition of grace. That’s why Paul said, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Did you deserve it? No, and neither did I. But Jesus said, "For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
I’ve written on this topic before. In fact, I feel that this essay is a bit repetitive. But forgiveness and showing grace keeps coming back to me because I struggle with it so much. My first instinct is to judge and be punitive and harsh to teach the other person a lesson. I’ve made a lot of mistakes as a result. But God is working on me to reprogram the instincts of my flesh to become the instincts of Christ, to forgive and offer grace. So forgive me if I’m repeating myself; I am still in remedial education in this area, and must learn it and practice it and suffer the consequences of failing until I get it right.
Written By: Tim Barsuhn
