During Lent I saw the movie The Passion of the Christ. I was disturbed and convicted by the way Mel Gibson depicted the brutality of Jesus' Roman torturers, and also by the way the director displayed Jesus' love and forgiveness for his torturers. The director portrayed the soldiers as more despicable than I had ever imagined. Their faces showed a morbid delight in the scourging. Even when exhausted, the taunting torturers persisted in the gratuitous whippings with a mindless violence that evoked tears, disbelief and anger in me.

While the picture of torture was horrible, more powerful for me was the picture of Jesus' love, acceptance and forgiveness for his torturers. It was a ridiculous and extravagant love, laughable for its unreasonableness. It was an unswerving, noble love that never stooped to revenge or resentment. And it hit me between the eyes: this is the love Jesus has for me. Romans chapter 5 seared through my mind and heart: "But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us' (v. 8); "... while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son' (v. 10, italics added).

During my first half century of living I have identified enough enemies. The kids who hit me and tormented me and called me "Jap" when I moved to their all-white school—they were my enemies. I have hated those responsible for imprisoning my parents as teenagers with all of their extended families and 120,000 other Japanese Americans in miserable "relocation" camps during World War II. By extension, I find myself continually indignant at injustice I perceive to be inflicted on any defenseless minority. But resentment is a lethal spiritual toxin. The love of Christ is the cure. I want to testify that I am being cured; Jesus is liberating me.

In an adaptation from Jack Kornfield's A Path with Heart we read: "One ex-prisoner of war asked another, 'Have you forgiven your captors yet?' The second one replied, 'No, never.' And the other turned and said, 'Then it seems like they still have you in prison, don't they?'" (Spirituality & Health, Winter 1999).

Theologian Miroslav Volf recalled a question once put to Karl Barth: "Is it true that one day in heaven we will see again our loved ones?' Chuckling, Barth responded: "Not only the loved ones!" Volf then reflects: "The sting of the great theologian's response—be ready to meet there even those whom you dislike here—was directed against our propensity to populate heaven only with people whom we like" (Christianity Today, October 23, 2000).

How then shall we Presbyterians love? Our General Assembly meets soon. How can those of us who have been hurt by one another now love and worship Christ together? Only by the love of Jesus, who calls us to a new way to love.

Next month:
A new way of giving