Romans 5:6-8
For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

For those not following the controversy arising from David Letterman’s “joke” about Sara Palin’s daughter, here it is in a nutshell. While what he said about a 14 year old girl is repulsive, he has apologized, and the Palin family has accepted it.

There are two things we can do when someone has wronged us. We can forgive them or we can let it consume us. When someone is truly sorry for what they have done, aka repentance, the only option we have as Christians is forgiveness. While it may be tempting to smell blood in the water and try to take down someone who we perceive as hostile to one of our friends, we need to look upward to what our Father has done for us. The words of Jesus himself tell us to ask the Father to “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

It is so easy to look at what someone else has done and want to take vengeance on them. It is when we look at ourselves and all that we have done to transgress against God, and the grace, the undeserved forgiveness, that the Father has bestowed upon us, that we see that we have no other option than to forgive. I think we can all follow the example of the Palin family in this matter.