In his novel Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez portrays a marriage that disintegrates over a bar of soap. It was the wife's job to keep the house in order, including the towels, toilet paper, and soap in the bathroom. One day she forgot to replace the soap, an oversight her husband mentioned in an exaggerated way ("I've been bathing for almost a week without any soap!") She resented his sarcasm, and her pride was hurt. For the next seven months they slept in separate rooms and ate in silence. "Even when they were old and placid," writes Marquez, "they were very careful about bringing it up, for the barely healed wound could begin to bleed again as if they had been inflicted only yesterday," How can a bar of soap ruin a marriage? Because neither partner would say, "Stop. This cannot go on. I'm sorry. Forgive me." Over such trivialities, lifelong relationships crack apart; only forgiveness, can halt the widening fissures.

Francois Mauriac, in Viper's Tangle, tells a similar story of an old man who spent the last few decades of his marriage sleeping down the hall from his wife. Every night he lies awake waiting for her to approach him, and she never appears. Every night she lies awake waiting for him to approach her, and he never appears. Neither will break the cycle of blame that began over some miscue years before. It takes the attitude of Christ Jesus to break the cycle. It requires humbling oneself, and becoming obedient to death, the death of pride, even death on the cross. What does that mean? Admitting that I am a sinner in need of salvation, a sinner in need of forgiveness, a sinner who is willing to die to self-centeredness, a sinner who is willing to repent, to change, to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit and take up my cross and follow Jesus. It requires conviction of one's own sin and not blaming others for our shame and pain.

In 1990 East Germany held its first free elections. The official act of their Parliament was to vote on this extraordinary statement:

"We....on behalf of the citizens of this land, admit responsibility for the humiliation, expulsion and murder of Jewish men, women and children. We feel sorrow and shame, and acknowledge this burden of German history... We ask all the Jews of the world to forgive us. We ask the people of Israel to forgive us for the hypocrisy and hostility of official East German policies toward Israel and for the persecution and humiliation of Jewish citizens in our country after 1945 as well."

It was passed unanimously. Members rose to their feet for a long ovation, then they paused for a moment of silence in memory of the Jews who died in the Holocaust. They broke the cycle of blame and shame.

In Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, Jean Valjean, after having been released from prison as a hardened convict, is taken in by a kindly bishop. During the night Valjean steals the family silver and leaves. The next morning the police caught him and returned him to the bishop's house. But the bishop, instead of identifying him as a thief said, "So here you are! I'm delighted to see you. Have you forgotten that I gave you the candlesticks as well.... Did you forget to take them." He said to the gendarmes, "This silver is my gift to him." When the police had withdrawn the bishop said to Valjean, "Do not forget, do not ever forget, that you have promised me to use the money to make yourself an honest man." The bishop's act of forgiveness broke the cycle of blame. Valjean dedicated himself to helping others in need. He was transformed by the attitude of Christ.

This world in which we live is full of individuals and groups and nations blaming others for their condition. We can act out our resentment and bitterness in many forms of spite and violence. We can seek vindication or revenge for our perceived injustices. We can feel wronged by others and we are not willing to let the past go. We want justice to be done not mercy. But how does that square with the Cross of Christ?

Philippians 2:5-8 tells us that he, who was by nature God, by definition is always in the right, who never did anything wrong, did not hold onto his dignity. Instead, out of his desire to be reconciled to us, he made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, he became one of us. It was not easy for him to become obedient to death -- for the immortal to take upon himself our mortality, for the strong to become weak, for the innocent to endure a painful and slow execution. It was not easy for him to pay the price of forgiveness: the humiliation, the suffering, and the death on the cross. But he did it, out of great love for us. It was the only way to break the cycle of blame, and shame, and guilt. It was the only way to break the impasse of unforgiven sin that, that divided us from God and one another.

The desire for justice in our relationships with one another is often a desire for revenge. The Cross is an act of God's justice and mercy. It is his way of saying, "Trust me to avenge, to deal with the blame." "Do not take revenge...but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay, says the Lord.'" (Rom.12:19)

Life isn't fair. But God had given us a way out of the endless cycle of blame if we want it. It requires accepting God's forgiveness of us, of admitting our need of forgiveness. It means letting him deal with the sins of others. When we do that, he breaks the hold of blame on our spirits. We enter into the freedom and healing of the attitude of Christ. That is the essence of salvation: deliverance from blame.

The Rev. Ted Schroder is pastor of Amelia Island Plantation Church on Amelia Island, Florida