The man with the knives, the pretty girl on the target, the drum roll and then the silence.
A knife whistles through the air into the target, inches away from the young lady.
Then another, and another and another. The crowd is hushed and shocked at the danger, the accuracy and the fearlessness of the young woman.
In this line of work you wouldn’t want the knife thrower to suddenly sneeze, would you?
An irritation and a purely natural instinctive reaction.
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The knife could fly off harmlessly into the background. Watch out roadies!
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The knife could fly off harmfully into the heart of the beautiful young woman. Watch out for Lawyers!
How do you respond when someone reacts and fires off a knife, supposedly meaning no harm, yet it strikes deep into your heart. They have sneezed a few words, a sentence, a paragraph, an essay!
Words said that strike deep into your heart. We are wounded. We want to strike back and serve a dozen back at them, and sometimes we do.
I marvel at Jesus on the cross.
It wasn’t just a knife; it was nails, taunts, abandonment, spit, whips, jeering. In his last gasps of life he cries out to his Daddy, Papa, Heavenly Father these words.
Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Luke 23:34
Jesus was somehow able to differentiate himself from the pain experienced by the knife throwers, sneezing away, to see a much bigger picture.
The long term compelling vision of being an eternal,sacrificial lamb, for knife throwers like you and I. (Tweet it ?)
They didn’t know what they were doing, they couldn’t comprehend it. Maybe only a small handful had truly grasped who Jesus was, and still they would have had deep questions about the mystery of it all.
No one knew the whole story and so they made judgements on what they could see with the microscopic viewpoint they had.
God the Spirit, God the Father, God the Son had an Eternal Panoramic Viewpoint.
Forgiveness, I believe, is the most difficult of spiritual habits to embrace. We talk about spiritual exercises such as Bible reading, silence, giving, etc… but what about the spiritual exercise of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is hard because it has so many different layers to it. It challenges us on so many different levels.
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Can I truly embrace and forgive someone who has knifed me, either intentionally or unintentionally in the heart?
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Can I embrace and forgive myself when I was the one who threw the knife and now someone lies wounded because of me?
In my next post I will look at a three-part cycle that can help with forgiveness. We will discover that we need to learn to Embrace, Trace, and Grace the pain.
Question to consider and share a comment
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What is it like to be knifed by a sneeze, an involuntary act?
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How does Jesus forgiving his knife throwers help you to forgive others and even yourself?
Check out Part two and Part three
Barry Pearman
Image by Shaun Dunmall Creative Commons Flickr
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