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“LET’S PRETEND YOU DIDN’T SIN”

They may be two of the most gripping crime-story books ever written — and the irony is that both of them were penned by a 20-year-old mountain-mama girl named Joy Swift. Many of you listeners have read her wrenching story told in the Christian bestseller, They’re All Dead, Aren’t They? A few years later she retold the story in a more secular style for a broader audience; that book was entitled A Cry for Justice.

In a nutshell, Joy was still 15 when she married an older man named George, and inherited his three kids. The teen bride immediately had two baby girls of her own, and was soon “playing house,” so to speak, in a blended family of seven. George’s oldest daughter, Stephanie, was just two years younger than Joy was, but she managed to be a good stepmom, a maternal authority figure to the girl and the other four kids in the house.

And then, one September night in 1977, while she and George were out at a community bingo game, there was the sound of police sirens. All four of the younger kids had been shot dead, butchered right there in the house. All of Missouri called it the crime of the century. And it stunned that Lake Ozark community when the killer turned out to be none other than the 14-year-old neighbor kid, Billy Dyer.

The story is powerfully told, about how this young mother, just 20 years old, had to cope with her grief and her anger. I mean, being a mom was her life! It was everything to her — George and the kids. And just like that, they were gone.

It’s a longer story than we could relate here, and I highly recommend both of these books: They’re All Dead, Aren’t They?, and A Cry For Justice. But I want to briefly relate two later incidents for you.

It took 11 years — flashing clear down to 1988 — before Mrs. Joy Swift, now a born-again Christian, made an appointment with Warden Armontrout at the Missouri State Penitentiary. She stayed overnight in a motel, praying and reading her Bible and marking verses. The next day she signed in, and showed her driver’s license, and went through metal detectors. And finally, after having thought about this moment for 11 years, after playing and endlessly replaying the scene in her mind, she sat in a chair next to the glass barrier, and spoke over the telephone with a 24-year-old man, Mr. William Dyer, the person who had shot and killed her two boys and her two baby daughters, Tonya and Stacy.

Point One is what she said to him that day — and friend, this is heavy. Word for word, now, from her book, as she reconstructs the conversation:

“Billy,” she said, “I came here to forgive you . . . if you’re sorry for what you did. I hate what you did to my kids. I’ll always hate what you did. But I want you to know that I don’t hate you. You have to understand that forgiveness did not come easily for me. It’s taken a long time for me to reach this point, and I don’t want you to take it lightly.”

We’ve been studying for a week-and-a-half the concept of forgiveness, and of what grudges do to a person. And I must say that despite her valiant efforts, bitterness and resentment were twin enemies, twin crises for Joy and her husband George. The mouth can say, “Billy, I forgive you” . . . and yet the heart can take a while to follow along. And it has taken an enormous toll on this young woman’s life, the ever-present challenge of staying in an attitude of forgiveness, of giving our grievances over to God. And then again. And again. We’ve had this as our series title: I’VE GOT TO NURSE THIS GRUDGE BECAUSE IT’S SICK! And Joy would be the first to say that she dwelt in the shadow of death — she lived in the intensive care ward of the hospital of hatred — for a pretty long time both before and after this 1988 prison visit to see Billy Dyer.

We’ve been trying in this series, though, to just focus on one key Bible idea each day. And here’s the one for today; here’s the message we must sometimes say to the person who has wronged us. Even as we say, “I forgive you,” even as we say with our mouths and, hopefully, our hearts, “I give this to God,” we sometimes need to also say this:

“You are able to make choices. I hold you responsible for this action.”

By the way, that’s quoting directly from this marvelous booklet we’re sharing as a gift with all of our listeners in this series: How Can I Forgive?, by Vera Sinton. She suggests that instead of attacking the person, we calmly address the wrong action. And express our emotions this way:

“You are a mature person. You know there are things that are right and wrong in the world. You are able to make choices. I hold you responsible for this action.”

You know, the Bible has a lot to say about forgiveness, and also tells some good stories on that topic. You might remember one in Luke chapter 19 about a vertically challenged man named Zacchaeus, who hadn’t eaten his Wheaties, and decided to climb up in a sycamore tree in order to get a look at this Jesus of Nazareth. By the way, he could have afforded Wheaties — plenty of ‘em — because he was a crooked tax collector, siphoning off most of the TurboTax profits for himself every time people in his territory hit the computer “send” button. On the Jerusalem 1040 forms of his day, the government was getting the ten and he was keeping the 40.

But you know, when he has an encounter with Jesus Christ, the forgiving Son of God, and becomes aware of his sin, he doesn’t simply accept the gift of forgiveness. He also pledges to give back the money he’s stolen; in fact, he refunds four times the amount he’s looted. We don’t have a transcript of what went on during that suppertime visit with Jesus, but somehow Zacchaeus came to realize that he was both forgiven and responsible.

Repeatedly in our studying, the concept comes through that when we forgive someone, we are simply taking that entire situation, and really, without comment, giving it over to God. And it is equally important to notice what we are not doing: We are not ignoring what happened. We’re not minimizing it. We’re not saying it didn’t happen, or that it doesn’t matter. If someone breaks a vase, they broke a vase. It’s broken. Forgiveness is not a huge, cosmic game of “let’s pretend.” In Joy’s case, four kids were dead. Forgiving Billy Dyer didn’t bring them back to life; it didn’t imply that this horrific crime had not happened or that it didn’t matter.

And we find in Jesus’ own ministry that He was not simply a dispenser of cheap forgiveness. He would look right at people and say, “Woe unto you.” He said to the woman caught in adultery, very gently, but also in a voice you could hear, “Neither do I condemn you. Now go and sin no more.” Which was His way of clearly telling her that what she had just done was a sin. It was wrong. She did bear some responsibility. His forgiving her took away guilt, but it didn’t take away reality.

In this same book on forgiveness, Vera Sinton also makes this point:

“‘Sorry’ is not a magic formula: It must never prevent us from talking about the problems in a relationship and finding real solutions.”

I remember an article in my denomination’s official weekly magazine, the Adventist Review, where a columnist suggested that someone who had been convicted of rape or some sexual crime, might, at a later time, be reinstated to employment in a position where young people were under his authority again. And there was a flood of letters from readers saying, “I don’t think so.” Because forgiveness doesn’t erase reality; it doesn’t mean that we don’t need to confront evil and say to someone, “Yes, you did this.” It doesn’t mean we don’t have to seek real solutions, as Sinton suggests.

In a chapter entitled “When Forgiveness Seems Unjust,” she tells about a London case where three men break into a house, rape the daughter, tie up the dad and the boyfriend, and beat them with a bat. This family, being Christian, offers forgiveness to the assailants. As a result, 11 months later, the judge hands down three paper-thin sentences. “The victimized family seems to be handling it well,” he comments. “Their suffering must not have been too bad.”

And you know, this soft-spoken Christian victim, this dad, protests vigorously. And Sinton comments:

“For him there was no contradiction between saying personally, ‘I forgive them,’ and also demanding that the justice of the law be fully carried out.”

Here’s Point Two about Joy Swift and the aftermath of this prison visit. She looked into the dark brooding eyes of this young killer, Bill Dyer, and told him she forgave him. Because of Calvary, because of the strength of her God, she was able to say those incredible words, those liberating words. But when lawyers came to her and asked if she would give approval at his upcoming parole hearing she gave what I think is a very Scriptural, two-word response: “No way. Not for a long, long time. No way.” Release from guilt, but not release from reality.