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Peter asks Jesus about forgiveness. If someone has sinned against me, how many times must I forgive him? Peter’s question begs interpretation. He might be asking: how often must I endure these attacks? He might be asking: How long can I wait before I can seek revenge? He might be asking: Is there a limit, is there a sin too big? Aren’t there some things that—after all, considering everything, being reasonable—some things that I need not forgive?

Peter thinks he is being generous with his offer. Seven times is a lot. Forgiving someone seven times would try any person’s patience. Is Peter saying: Seven times would show sufficient compassion? Is he saying: Seven times might make me a fool in the world’s eyes, but I’m willing, because I follow Jesus. Seven times would prove my good will, my understanding, and my willingness to be humble, to give my life so that I might save it. It would prove the point.

Jesus’ reply is amazing. There is no limit, Peter. Nothing is so bad, so hard, or goes on so long that you are released from the command to forgive. The number Jesus uses—either 77 or 70 times 7, depending on the translator—just means a very big number, infinity. If you are counting up, Jesus is saying, then you don’t get it. There is no limit.

This is hard to believe. So hard to believe, in fact, that by and large we don’t. We don’t do it, at any rate. Yet forgiveness is the central and distinguishing mark of Christianity, and that mark is radical and disturbing. It is both Christians’ greatest comfort and our greatest challenge. Christian forgiveness is endless and without condition. There is no teaching that lets followers of Christ off the hook here. No requirement for repentance, even. No exchange. We pray: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” This is not a transaction whose payments we might record in a book for later accounting. Forgiveness for our sins and the sins we forgive are not an arrangement, not an exchange. They are both mighty benefits that we need and pray for.

Forgiveness is not something to be earned. The psalm tells us that God does not deal with us according to our sins or reward us according to our wickedness. That’s good news for us, sinners. Forgiveness is not something to be earned partly because God is good, the psalm reminds us, full of compassion and of great kindness, caring for us as a good parent cares for his or her child.

But partly it is because of physics and the heart. There are things that cannot be undone. What we do makes a difference. Hurts we cause do hurt, even if subsequently healed. Stupid mistakes remain mistakes even if compensated for. We can’t always take back what we say. “Never mind” is wishful thinking. “I’m sorry” is a comfort, not an erasure. And some things we do are without explanation. Or the explanation doesn’t matter. I really don’t want to hear right now why you hurt me. I just know that you did.

For these reasons, there is nothing like forgiveness. I don’t mean that forgiveness is way up there compared to other similar things. I meant there are not similar things. I mean that forgiveness is in a class by itself. Nothing else will do. There is nothing else. A minister friend of mine became a Christian when one day he realized that he had said something hurtful and mean to his wife, and that there was nothing he or anyone else could do to undo it. And that forgiveness was the only way to restore bonds torn by hurt and sorrow. He knew that in Christianity that realization is central. In Christianity sin is not so much a violation of a standard or thought or behavior. Sin is anything that requires forgiveness.

Sins that we do not forgive are not little treasures to be hoarded, which is what we often do. We forgive neither ourselves nor other people nor God. We carry around with us all these little bundles of resentments: at missed chances, barriers placed in our paths, violence done to us and abuse; at disease and accidents; at times when we were passed over, neglected and ignored, times when someone made fun of us, hurt us by sticks and stones and nasty names; at times when someone hurt people we love, mocked ideas we cherish, made us fearful with threats. Times we hurt others.

“What if Joseph holds a grudge against us?” Joseph’s brothers ask in the reading from Genesis. (They are right to ask, since they conspired to kill him, then to abandon him to death, and in the end sold him as a slave.) The expression “hold a grudge” is interesting. These resentments, big and small, are grudges. Life gives them to us, saying, “here, hold this grudge for a bit, will you?” I imagine it like a brick in one of those plastic shopping bags. And then it gives us another to hold, and then another and another. Pretty soon we are heavy with grudges. They weigh us down. We can hardly dance anymore, the burden makes us sore and unhappy. It makes us bitter, or vengeful, or disgusted. It authorizes violence. We become preoccupied, spending a lot of time in grudge maintenance and grudge management. It’s tiring. It gives us an odd view of the world.

The word that Peter and Jesus use when they talk about forgiveness means to let go. Let go of those bags of grudges. The word is really more forceful than that. It means “send out, send away.” It means “to hurl.” To forgive is to hurl all those things out of here. Get rid of them. To forgive is not just to release our grip, but to toss away with energy. Forgive boldly.

I’m not saying this is easy. How can you forgive your enemy, your friend, your spouse, your God, yourself, when one has wounded you? Maybe carrying around bags of grudge comes naturally, maybe it is built in. But Jesus has not given us a chore, but a chance. An opportunity to be free. To take the load off.

Christians trust that Jesus came to free us from the power of death. Jesus came to bring us good and abundant life. Jesus both promises and preaches forgiveness. Your sins are forgiven, he says. He says, forgive infinitely, without condition or limit. These are not different things. We are healed—another word for salvation—by acts of forgiveness and acts of forgiving. We are free to enjoy abundant life.

Holding onto sins committed against us—to not forgive those sins—is deadly. It is killing us—each of us and all of humanity—and keeping us from the life God made us to have. It cannot be what God wants, and it is not—as the psalm tells is—it is not what God does.

Bless the Lord, my soul. My soul, bless the Lord, who leads us from death into life.