I listened on TV to an interview with archbishop Demond Tutu´s daughter, Mpho Tutu, who has along with her father written “a manual on the art of forgiveness” on which she elaborated.

Something was missing. Christ was missing. She boldly held forth “the difficult path of confession, forgiveness and reconciliation”, but her message was man-centered showing the steps we are to take to implement her manual and transform mankind.

Her father Desmond Tutu succeeded in bringing all this about after the sad apartheid days in South Africa.  The world watched him with awe and rewarded him with prizes.

However, the message of the Tutus is based on man´s ability. But nobody  is able to preach true forgiveness apart from Christ. It is His forgiveness based on the word of the cross, we preach to repentant sinners.

The American chaplain, Henry Gerecke, preached the gospel´s word of forgiveness and reconciliation through Jesus Christ to the war criminals in Nuremberg, and this cry was heard,  “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

It was pretty hard for him to accept that kind of ministry in 1946 having two sons that had been badly maltreated by the Nazis, but the love of Christ compelled him.  He was not the object of the world´s admiration as was Desmond Tutu, but God honored his faithful “ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:18), a foolishness to the world, including Desmond´s religious and political world, and through that preaching of foolishness it pleased God to save some repentant sinners.

The world has its soft notions about forgiveness, but our calling is to point to Christ as the  way of salvation and “the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace”, which is in Him and Him only (Eph. 1:7). 

 Nov. 7, 2014 – jn