redemption

First, from Dictionary.com:

redemption

[ri-demp-shuh n]

noun
1. an act of redeeming or atoning for a fault or mistake, or the state of being redeemed.
2. deliverance; rescue.
3. Theology. deliverance from sin; salvation.
4. atonement for guilt.

Then from other, more blog-oriented, subjective sites:

… “the act of delivering from sin or saving from evil.”

… “the act of buying something back, or paying a price to return something to your possession.”

… “It means bought back, redeemed.”

Best I can tell, colloquially speaking, it means a person screws up — meaning a significant, seemingly character-defining, severely negative mistake — and then over some course of time, they change. The change is marked not only by the grieving of their own error/sin/offense, but they also make amends (as able), ask forgiveness, and they commit, as best as possible, to “sin no more.”

My sense is the scenario that allows for redemption is an incredibly ugly thing. My sense is that it also has the potential to be incredibly, amazingly powerful.

Here, though, is the problem…

While personally when we screw up (because yes, we all do), we believe in redemption — we know we’re capable of better and we want to grow and become wiser — we withhold that from other people, especially public personalities.

It’s like we say “I saw them when they said ______… I watched them when they did ______…” And then we forever put them in that box, so-to-speak. We forever act as if we know who they really are… and we don’t give them the grace and space to grow and change… even though we reserve that grace and space for ourselves.

Chuck Colson is the first person I think of… a man who was known to be politically ruthless, termed by one Slate Magazine writer as “the evil genius” of the Nixon administration. When he later repented and even founded Prison Fellowship in 1976, “the nation’s largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their families” today, I wonder how many held onto their own, previously held position, the “in-my-box” idea that Colson was still that ruthless man, because “I saw them when…”

I think, too, of Pietro Maso, the Italian man — 46 now — who bludgeoned his parents to death with heavy kitchen pans and then suffocated them, all to receive his inheritance when he was 20. For such a crime, I’m certain many would aver “no way is that guy ever changing!” … except in prison, he repented. In fact, Pope Francis called him after he was released, acknowledging his changed heart. Maso has now dedicated himself to helping others.

It makes me wonder… who else are we putting in a box?

Who else are we withholding the right to grow and change?

Who else do we believe is incapable of redemption?

(Scary thought. We can be a little judgmental sometimes…)

Respectfully…
AR