…well then so can we. Aside from the fact that Warner hired someone from Kraft to consult on just the right amount of cheese to inject in the weenie that is “Spider-Man 3,” they actually take a stab at providing their viewers with a moral. And that moral is forgiveness. Except not really forgiveness, but something they call forgiveness. I know some people will find great reasons to like this movie (special effects, deliberate quirkiness, yada…), but they will all pale in comparison to the “Shut Up!” that any thinking person should be feeling after throwing your $9 into this orifice.
Here goes: Peter Parker finds out that the Sandman didn’t mean to kill his grandfather. It was a terrible accident. And then Harry the Hobgoblin’s son finds out that Peter didn’t actually kill his father. It was a terrible misunderstanding. Peter treats Mary-Jane like trash, but then finds out that it was the fault of a terrible alien thing that flew in on a meteor and possessed his Spidey-suit. Then they all get together, make silly cry faces and declare their “forgiveness” for one another. And Peter spells it all out for us by telling us how important forgiveness really is. But wait a minute. Don’t you have to have actually done something to be forgiven for it? You see the problem. Need I write more?
I recently read N.T. Wright’s “Evil and the Justice of God,” which is another excellent book that doesn’t provide any answers to the question of why pain exists if God loves humanity so much. And that’s why it’s good. Essentially, it provides an understanding of evil in terms of what God has done, is doing, and will do about it. It doesn’t presume to make sense of suffering, but to show how suffering is not the “final word.” Read it. He writes some things that are really potent, not least of which is that forgiveness doesn’t try to minimize the weight of an offense or the degree of pain that is inflicted. It doesn’t say, “Well you didn’t mean to” or “It’s not as bad as maybe I think” or some other disingenuous hogwash. It actually takes every bit into account and has to let it be as offensive or vile or demeaning as it really is. Then forgiveness says, “Although this is how bad I’ve been treated, this is my response. I forgive it all. Not part of it or some of it by degree. All of it.” Point is, forgiveness doesn’t find a way to say the bad stuff is less bad. It says it’s as bad as it really is. And then addresses it tit for tat. For it to really be forgiveness, it has to really be something to forgive.
We’re truly forgiven by God. Not because he overlooks our selfishness and idolatry. He stares it right in the face, feels the betrayal all the way to his holy kidneys, and points to the finished bloody work of Jesus on the cross. It’s bad stuff. Really bad. And so it’s forgiven at that depth and to that power.
