Dylann Roof appeared on a video screen in a Charleston courtroom.

Two days earlier, he had walked into a Bible study, sat with the group for nearly an hour, and then opened fire.

Nine people were killed.

Among them was 70-year-old Ethel Lance.

Now her daughter, Nadine Collier, was being given an opportunity to speak to the man who had taken her mother from her.

Her voice broke.

She told Roof that he had taken someone precious from her. She would never speak to her mother again. She would never hold her again.

And then she said three words almost impossible to imagine saying:

“I forgive you.”

Roof had not apologized.

He had not expressed remorse.

In fact, what emerged later was considerably worse.

In a jailhouse journal written after the massacre, Roof made his position explicit:

“I do not regret what I did.”

He said he wasn't sorry and had shed no tears for the innocent people he killed.

Which makes Collier's words difficult to comprehend.

How do you forgive someone who isn't sorry?

Someone who doesn't think they need your forgiveness?

Someone who may never care that they’ve hurt you?

And what does Christianity actually require when the person who hurt you hasn't merely wounded you —

but changed the course of your life?

Forgiveness Does Not Mean It Wasn't That Bad

This needs to be said first.

As a Christian, forgiveness does not require you to minimize evil.

If someone abused you, calling it abuse is not bitterness.

If your spouse betrayed you, forgiveness doesn't require describing betrayal as a mistake.

If someone destroyed your reputation with lies, you do not honor Christ by pretending the damage was insignificant.

Nadine Collier did not look at the man who murdered her mother and say:

“It's okay.”

It wasn't okay.

Her mother was dead.

Forgiveness begins with the recognition that there is actually something to forgive.

The debt is real.

The wound is real.

The evil is real.

And Christianity gives us no command to call darkness light simply because we're trying to be forgiving.

Forgiveness Is Not Trust

Imagine someone has betrayed you repeatedly.

They lie.

You discover the lie.

They apologize.

Then they do it again.

Forgiving that person does not require handing them the same access to your life they had before.

Forgiveness and trust answer different questions.

Forgiveness asks:

What am I going to do with the wrong that has been done to me?

Trust asks:

Is this person safe enough to place something valuable in their hands again?

Trust can be destroyed in a moment.

Sometimes rebuilding it takes years.

Sometimes wisdom says it should never return to what it was.

A person who stole from you may be forgiven without being given access to your finances.

An abusive parent may be forgiven without being given unrestricted access to grandchildren.

A spouse may forgive betrayal without pretending the marriage has instantly returned to normal.

Forgiveness can be given. Trust must become trustworthy again.

Forgiveness Is Not Reconciliation

This distinction becomes even more important when the offender isn't sorry.

Reconciliation is the restoration of a relationship.

But relationships contain more than one person.

You cannot confess another person's sin for them.

You cannot force them to tell the truth.

You cannot manufacture repentance.

And you cannot single-handedly restore a relationship while the other person remains committed to the thing that destroyed it.

Pastor Steve Mapa has described reconciliation through the cross as Christ making peace where there had been hostility and estrangement. At its center is Christ loving His enemy and bearing the burden that reconciliation requires.

But restored relationship and a forgiving heart are not identical things.

You can refuse vengeance toward someone you are not safe being reconciled with.

Forgiveness Does Not Cancel Justice

This may be one of the most damaging misunderstandings of Christian forgiveness.

“Forgive them” does not mean:

Don't report the crime.

Don't testify.

Don't establish boundaries.

Don't protect the next victim.

Don't allow consequences.

Romans 12 tells Christians not to take personal vengeance.

The very next chapter speaks about governing authorities administering justice.

Those ideas belong together.

There is a difference between:

“I want justice.”

and:

“I need to personally make you suffer because I need to watch you pay.”

Dylann Roof's victims' families could forgive him while the state prosecuted him.

Those things were not contradictory. Roof was eventually convicted on all 33 federal counts and sentenced to death; he later pleaded guilty to state murder charges as well.

Christian forgiveness does not turn justice into injustice.

But What If They Aren't Sorry?

This is where things become harder.

Suppose they never apologize.

They still insist they did nothing wrong.

Perhaps they blame you.

Perhaps twenty years later they are still telling a version of the story in which somehow they are the victim.

What exactly are you supposed to do?

Christians disagree somewhat over the precise language here. Some distinguish between forgiveness fully transacted after repentance and a forgiving posture toward the unrepentant offender.

But Scripture gives us something unmistakable to aim toward even before an enemy repents:

Do not pursue personal vengeance.

Love your enemies.

Pray for those who persecute you.

Do not allow hatred to become the organizing principle of your life.

And perhaps the most startling example comes from Jesus Himself.

Jesus Prayed for Forgiveness While They Were Killing Him

Jesus had been betrayed.

Falsely accused.

Beaten.

Mocked.

Stripped.

Nailed to a cross.

And while the people responsible were still carrying out His execution, Jesus prayed:

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Notice what had not happened.

There had been no apology.

No confession.

No attempt to make restitution.

Some of the people around Him were still mocking Him.

Jesus was not forgiving people who had returned years later overwhelmed by remorse.

He was praying for mercy while the nails were still holding Him to the cross.

And yet He was not pretending their actions were harmless.

The cross itself tells us how seriously God takes sin.

Nor does Jesus' prayer mean repentance no longer matters or that everyone present suddenly enjoyed a restored relationship with God.

But it reveals something about the heart of Christ:

His enemies' hatred did not create hatred in Him.

He desired mercy even for those who were inflicting His suffering.

Pastor Steve has described the cross in similar terms: in Christ, God has most supremely chosen to love His enemy. Rather than merely destroying His enemies, Christ bears the burden through which reconciliation becomes possible.

That is an extraordinarily high calling.

And Jesus was not the last Christian to demonstrate it.

Stephen Prayed While the Stones Were Falling

In Acts 7, an angry crowd drags Stephen away and stones him to death.

As he is dying, Stephen cries:

“Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”

Again:

No apology.

No remorse.

No reconciliation.

They are still killing him.

And among the men approving of Stephen's death is someone named Saul.

Stephen dies without knowing what will become of him.

He never sees Saul encounter the risen Christ.

He never sees Saul become Paul.

He never watches the persecutor become the preacher who will carry the gospel throughout the Roman world.

Stephen did not pray for his enemies because he knew how their story would end.

He prayed because he knew Christ.

That matters when the person who hurt you appears utterly unchanged.

You don't know the end of their story either.

Maybe Forgiveness Means Giving Up the Right to Become Their Judge

This does not mean pretending justice doesn't matter.

It means recognizing that ultimate justice does not belong to us.

Someone may owe you something they can never repay.

An apology won't bring your child back.

A confession won't give you your childhood again.

A prison sentence won't erase what happened.

Even if the person crawled to your door tomorrow overwhelmed with remorse, they could not undo the past.

And that's where vengeance becomes such a terrible master.

Because vengeance promises:

“If they suffer enough, you'll finally be whole.”

But how much suffering would be enough?

What payment restores what was lost?

At some point forgiveness says:

I will not spend the rest of my life trying to collect an unpayable debt.

God sees.

God judges.

Justice matters.

But I will not make vengeance my life's work.

What If I Still Feel Angry Tomorrow?

You very well may.

Forgiveness is sometimes talked about as though it were an emotional switch.

You forgive.

The anger disappears.

You feel peace.

You never think about it again.

Real wounds rarely work that way.

Nadine Collier's three words did not erase her grief. A year after the Charleston massacre, she still spoke about how heavily she missed her mother and about forgiveness as something costly rather than easy. Other relatives wrestled with forgiveness differently.

A decision to forgive does not necessarily heal trauma overnight.

You may decide today:

I will not seek revenge.

And wake up furious tomorrow.

Then perhaps tomorrow you give that anger to God again.

And the next day.

Forgiveness may sometimes happen in a moment.

Other times it may look like repeatedly refusing to allow someone else's evil to determine what kind of person you become.

The Cross Doesn't Make Evil Smaller

It does something much greater.

The cross simultaneously tells us:

Sin is worse than we imagine.

and:

Grace reaches farther than we imagine.

God does not make peace with His enemies by pretending there was never hostility.

Pastor Steve's preaching on Ephesians emphasizes that reconciliation comes through the cross, through Christ Himself bearing the cost necessary to make enemies into friends.

That means Christian forgiveness should never become cheap sentimentalism.

We can call evil evil.

Seek justice.

Protect people.

Establish boundaries.

Refuse false reconciliation.

And still pray:

God, don't let what this person did turn me into someone consumed by hatred.

And maybe - even harder:

Have mercy on them.

That's the prayer Jesus prayed.

That's the prayer Stephen prayed.

What If They Never Say They're Sorry?

They may not.

Dylann Roof's lack of remorse made the Charleston families' words more difficult, not less. Years after the killings, his writings and statements continued to show no meaningful regret for the massacre.

Some people never give us the ending we want.

They never admit it.

Never explain themselves.

Never ask for forgiveness.

Perhaps they die before they ever face what they've done.

And if your healing requires them to finally give you the right words, then someone who has already taken a great deal from you still possesses extraordinary control over your future.

Forgiveness does not say:

“What you did doesn't matter.”

It may say something much harder:

“What you did mattered enormously.”

“It was wrong.”

“It wounded me.”

“There may still be consequences.”

“I may never trust you again.”

“We may never be reconciled unless something changes.”

“But I will not make hatred my home.”

I will leave ultimate judgment with God.

I will ask Christ for the strength to desire mercy without denying justice.

And I will not allow the worst thing you did to become the thing that defines the rest of my life.

Because the Christian hope is not that evil wasn't really evil.

It is that evil does not get to have the final word.