Last Sunday, we read this passage from Jeremiah in worship:

The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt — a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.(Jeremiah 31:31-34)

There's plenty of good news crammed into four short verses: God will make a new covenant with his people, and God's promises will stick to their hearts, they are forever claimed as God's own, and they will know God - really know God - no matter what their status in life, and God will forgive them all their sins, past, present, and future.

For David Lose, the best news in all of this is that God forgets. He says:

God does what Israel cannot: God forgets. In response to their failure, God refuses to recognize it. In response to their infidelity, God calls them faithful. In response to their sin and brokenness and very real wretchedness, God's memory has to be pushed and prodded to find any recollection. God forgets. (Dear Working Preacher 3.18.12)

What does it mean for us that God forgets our sin? This is bigger than forgiveness, Lose is telling us. Forgiveness is a beautiful thing - God's willingness to overlook our sins and love us anyway, and God's willingness to send his Son that those sins might be blotted away. But the bigger good news is that God is willing and able to forget our sins. Even the memory of our sins is blotted out, and God sees us as whole, holy people.

How would your life be different if you were not only willing to forgive others (and yourself!), but if you also gave yourself permission to forget?