Tuesday October 11

Christians indeed have a strange image of God: a naked, bleeding man, dying on a cross. It’s not what you would think the image of God could be or should be. Is God eccentric here, or is it we who have not diagnosed the human situation correctly?

Jesus receives our hatred and does not return it. He suffers and does not make the other suffer. He does not first look at changing others, but pays the price of change within himself. He absorbs the mystery of human sin rather than passing it on. He does not use his suffering and death as power over others to punish them, but as power for others to transform them. He includes and forgives the sinner instead of hating him, which would only continue the pattern of hate. Amazing that people cannot see that!

It’s interesting that Jesus identifies forgiveness with breathing (John 20:22-23), the one thing that you have done constantly since you were born and will do until you die. He says God’s forgiveness is like breathing. Forgiveness is not apparently something God does; it is who God is. God can do no other.