The Absurdity of God's Forgiveness

April 02, 2012 by Joseph Susanka

Continued from Page 1

Like Olivier, our Heavenly Father lost His only Son at the hands of others. And like Olivier, He embraced His son's killers with a love so far beyond all human comprehension that we find ourselves astounded by it. "Nobody would do that," we say. "And even if someone did, He would never be able to understand why."

Yet God's forgiveness is even more absurd than Olivier's, for His Son's killer was not (nay, is not) a single, troubled young man. It is an entire race of fallen creatures—a race as obdurate and ungrateful in its rejection of His proffered grace as it is in need of it.

Yet He takes us back to Him even after the brutal betrayal of the Cross, and He has done it every moment of every day since that afternoon on Calvary. God does not do it because He needs to "move beyond" the Cross; He does it for no other reason than our own salvation. He has nothing to gain, and we have everything. How absurd and all-consuming is God's forgiveness; how impossibly unlike human forgiveness.

Let us thank Him for it.

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About Joseph Susanka

Joseph Susanka has been doing development work for institutions of Catholic higher education since his graduation from Thomas Aquinas College in 1999. He blogs at Crisis Magazine, where he also contributes feature articles on a variety of topics.

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