"Who are you, God? Identify yourself! Friend or foe? Are you for us or against us? Are you a philanthropist or a misanthrope?" To answer the question, ‘Who is God?’, God sent us a Love Note. What a comforting answer to creatures who are being chewed up into bits and pieces by a multitude of crosses in the Valley of Tears! "What a paradise it is for a soul when the heart knows itself to be so loved by God." . Jesus is the expression of God's love for us. He is the vehicle that conveyed love from heaven and deposited into the Valley of Tears. Does the fact that the Word of God was a Love Note instead of a threat or some other message bear any significance? The Love Note was published in the Valley of Tears on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection. On the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection, we baptized Jesus in a boiling pot of torture, suffering, killing and death . Jesus deposited forgiveness into the pot - not revenge, retaliation or retribution. The ingredient that Jesus deposited into the boiling pot of his baptism tells us all we need to know about God. Have you read the Love Note? Are you privy to the conversation between God and humanity that took place on the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection? We shouted our sharp question at him with lash, thorns, nails and spear. Our sharp question punctuated his body with bloody wounds. The punctuation marks were question marks. What would be his response to the evil we did to him. At the time, we did not know. We had no idea. God was a stranger to us. Thankfully, he did not respond to the evil that we did to him in kind. Thankfully, he did not give us a taste of his own medicine. Thankfully,he changed the tone of the conversation. He whispered his gentle answer back to us. His answer was asymmetric - radically asymmetric to the evil that we did to him. By forgiving us, Jesus declared that he is our friend not our foe. Our God is no longer a stranger to us. Our God is no longer a faceless God. On the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection, Jesus showed us the face of God. And the face of God is forgiveness.
Who are you, God? Identify yourself! Friend or foe?