Seventy-Seven

Peter thought he was being generous. Seven has a finished sound to it. He offered it and waited to be told he had gone far enough.

“Not just seven times, but seventy-seven times!”

That number already had a history, and not a kind one. Lamech, five generations after Cain, stands in front of his two wives and boasts about a man he killed for wounding him. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, he says, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.

It is the oldest arithmetic there is. Escalation. Whatever was done to me, more of it goes back.

Jesus takes the number that measured how far revenge would run and makes it the measure of how far mercy does.

Peter wanted a ceiling. He was handed a direction instead.