John 18: 16 – 27

Emerging From Cruelty into Caring

The cruelty that the dark side can come up with is staggering. History is strewn with stories of unbelievable cruelty. Some names are burned into our brains so that their recall elicits immediate emotional recoil. Manson. Dahmer. Stalin. Hitler. Pol Pot. 

Is it inevitable that the world’s cruelty will shape us into fearful, angry, pesimistic and even cruel people ourselves? Is it even possible that a child so abused by someone like Albert Fish, a serial killer, cannibal, and child abuser, can ever find healing? 

Somewhere at the cross of Jesus we begin to find an answer that comes only after immense pain and struggle. This Sunday the lesson from the cross stands in strong relief to the pain and suffering that the world can manufacture and then impose on us. In the hour of the greatest physical, mental and spiritual suffering he would ever experience while here on earth, He turns in the direction of caring. Not hostility. Not anger. Not rage. Not the projection of His suffering onto others. Caring. Loving those who had loved him. 

Let’s talk about the cross of Jesus and the healing of the  heretofore unhealable wounds of our  past.