{"id":5326,"date":"2026-03-30T08:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T12:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5326"},"modified":"2026-03-30T08:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T12:58:11","slug":"the-forgiveness-of-sins-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/30\/the-forgiveness-of-sins-i\/","title":{"rendered":"The Forgiveness of Sins I"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a>
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Throughout the season of Lent, we’re taking a close look at the Apostles’ Creed – one of the earliest and most concise summaries of what followers of Jesus believe.<\/em>
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Lou Johnson was one of the heroes who helped the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Minnesota Twins in the 1965 World Series.\u00a0
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Nicknamed \u201cSweet\u201d Lou because of his infectious smile and outgoing personality, Johnson hit a home run in the seventh and deciding game \u2013 a feat that forever enshrined him in the hearts of Angelinos.\u00a0 \u00a0
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That awesome moment was followed by years of substance abuse.\u00a0In order to sustain his habit, Johnson pawned off almost everything of personal value, including his uniform, bat, and glove. In 1971 he used his World Series ring as collateral with a Seattle cocaine dealer.\u00a0When he returned two hours later with cash to reclaim it, the dealer was gone.
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\u201cI was at my lowest ebb,\u201d he would later say.\u00a0\u201cIt was the only thing I had of value, and now I had given that away.\u201d
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Johnson ultimately found his way back to the Dodgers organization.\u00a0He got sober.\u00a0Sweet Lou became a member of the Dodgers community relations department, where he served as a drug and alcohol counselor until his death in 2020 at the age of 84.\u00a0
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In the picture above, taken in 2019, he stands alongside legendary pitcher Sandy Koufax, whose Game 7 victory his home run had helped secure.\u00a0
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Lou spent thirty years trying to recover his championship ring, but he had no idea how to track it down.\u00a0
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Then suddenly, in 2001, the ring turned up on eBay.\u00a0Before serious bidding could get underway, however, somebody swooped in and bought it.\u00a0
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The buyer turned out to be Dodgers president Bob Graziano, who wrote a check for $3,457.\u00a0He then gave the ring to Johnson \u2013 no repayment required.\u00a0
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Graziano accomplished what the former player had been unable to do for himself.\u00a0When Johnson once again put on his championship ring, he wept.\u00a0He wept because he understood grace. \u201cIt felt like a little bit of me had been reborn,\u201d he said. All he could do was gratefully receive a gift that he knew, for so many reasons, he did not deserve.
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Having arrived at the beginning of Holy Week, we find ourselves in the homestretch of the Apostles\u2019 Creed. Four words seem almost too good to be true: \u201cthe forgiveness of sins.\u201d
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But wait: Is that a declaration that we believe God forgives our sins or that we are called to forgive the sins of others? The answer, of course, is Yes. It\u2019s both. As we\u2019ve noted in past reflections, Jesus tells a particularly memorable parable in Matthew 18 that zeroes in on both dimensions of such grace.\u00a0
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It begins with an audit.
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\u201cTherefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.\u00a0As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him.\u00a0Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.\u00a0At this the servant fell on his knees before him. \u201cBe patient with me,\u201d he begged, \u201cand I will pay back everything.\u201d\u00a0The servant\u2019s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go\u201d <\/em>(Matthew 18:23-26).
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Here we need to pause and acknowledge that the servant doesn’t owe just a big debt.\u00a0It\u2019s an insane amount of money \u2013 impossible to pay off.\u00a0
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The best way to grasp the enormity of owing someone 10,000 talents is to realize that the entire annual budget of the province of Galilee in the time of Jesus was just 300 talents.\u00a0So this servant is essentially in the same position as an average U.S. citizen who is suddenly asked to whip out his checkbook and pay off America\u2019s current national debt of just under $39 trillion. It\u2019s not going to happen.\u00a0
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What is Jesus\u2019 point?\u00a0We\u2019re all in debt to God \u2013 a debt we can never repay.\u00a0
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The actress Sophia Loren was once asked during a USA Today<\/em> interview about her relationship with God.\u00a0She said, \u201cI pray.\u00a0I read the Bible.\u00a0It\u2019s the most beautiful book ever written.\u00a0I should go to heaven; otherwise, it\u2019s not nice.\u00a0I haven\u2019t done anything wrong.\u00a0My conscience is very clean.\u00a0My soul is as white as those orchids over there, and I should go straight to heaven.\u201d
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None of us has a soul as white as a cluster of orchids.\u00a0No matter how optimistic we might feel about ourselves, we owe God and we owe him big.\u00a0
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This is frightening news.\u00a0How does the servant in the parable respond?\u00a0He pleads for more time.\u00a0\u201cBe patient with me and I will pay everything back.\u201d\u00a0This is ludicrous.\u00a0This fellow thinks he can skimp and save for the rest of his life \u2013 maybe by adjusting his Starbucks habit to just two drive-throughs a week \u2013 and somehow pay off gazillion dollars.
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The king\u2019s heart, however, brims with grace.\u00a0He says to his servant, \u201cYou\u2019ll never live long enough to pay this one off.\u201d\u00a0
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Then he turns to his treasurer and says, \u201cDo you see the place in the ledger where it declares this man owes thus and so?\u00a0Cross it out.\u00a0Erase it.\u00a0Hit the delete key.\u201d\u00a0Then, turning back to the servant, \u201cMy friend, your debts are canceled.\u00a0You are free to go.\u201d\u00a0
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But wait a minute.\u00a0Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell is sitting over here, and he seems to have a question.\u00a0
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\u201cWho\u2019s going to balance these books?\u00a0Who\u2019s going to make up for this incredible financial loss?\u00a0Somebody has to pay.\u201d\u00a0The king answers, \u201cI will pay.\u00a0Charge the entire debt to me.\u201d\u00a0
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That\u2019s what it means to be forgiven by God.\u00a0Our Father in heaven is willing to convert our over-the-top personal obligations into his personal loss.\u00a0When we abandon ourselves to Jesus, all of our spiritual indebtedness \u2013 past, present and future \u2013 is erased.\u00a0Jesus\u2019 selfless, sin-canceling death on the cross balances the books for all who choose to put their trust in him.
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That\u2019s why Good Friday is called \u201cgood.\u201d It\u2019s so very unimaginably good for us<\/u><\/em>.
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And how does this gift become ours? The basis of God\u2019s decision to render our spiritual indebtedness null and void is grace,<\/strong> not expected repayment.\u00a0<\/em>
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In other words, God hasn\u2019t forgiven us just so we can start working extra hard to pay him back.\u00a0If we choose to believe this, our lives will be transformed.\u00a0Our relationships with others will never be the same. Grasping this produces a Sweet Lou Johnson moment of joy \u2013 only a million times greater.\u00a0
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But this is the point, for all too many of us, where we run into an old familiar obstacle.\u00a0
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We suspect this is too good to be true.\u00a0There\u2019s no such thing as a free lunch.\u00a0Deep down inside, we continue to believe that \u201cpay me what you owe me\u201d is the way the world really works.
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If we succumb to this temptation, life begins to run off the rails.
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That\u2019s what we\u2019ll discover tomorrow in Act II of this parable as we ponder God\u2019s breathtaking call to be just as gracious and forgiving with others as he is with us.

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0Throughout the season of Lent, we’re taking a close look at the Apostles’ Creed – one of the earliest and most concise summaries of what followers of Jesus believe.\u00a0Lou Johnson was one of the heroes who helped the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Minnesota Twins in the 1965 World Series.\u00a0\u00a0Nicknamed \u201cSweet\u201d Lou… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1080,76,101],"class_list":["post-5326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apostles-creed","tag-forgiveness","tag-grace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5328,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5326\/revisions\/5328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}