Forgiveness and Mercy

Is it forgiveness and mercy?

Is it that if there’s a God who orchestrated this life we live in this universe; who spread out the heavens and established the earth (Job 9); whose hands flung stars into space (Psalm 8); who unrolled the sky and its features ‘like a blanket’ (Psalm 104); who is also the very definition of goodness and purity — whose absolute (infinite) standards leave all of us feeling worthless not worthy, ashamed not glorious — and so aware of our failings and limits… the idea that this God would reach out to us so that we might find him (Acts 17), but more than that, to call us his children — no matter how messy our lives are or how much we know we stuff things up… is it that?

The idea that those hands — the hands that hold the universe together (Colossians 1) — would surrender themselves to being pierced by horrid spikes; made to destroy life, that they would be hung above that head to drag the last breath from that body; a body beaten and stripped naked… an innocent tortured to death in our place… is it the idea that somehow in that event, this God-man, the word that made the world in the flesh (John 1), this man Jesus died in our place to take whatever justice looks like for the times we know we’ve failed. Is it that in this event — in that symbol of the Cross — we understand not just sacrifice and love, but also experience mercy and forgiveness from the God who made the universe?