Christ the victim

And yet the inner conviction of our own superior place in the universe continues to make them in some sense victims – like the man who was passed over for that important job for no other reason than he had a suspiciously foreign-sounding name. Or the one who was passed over because of a suspicion of being gay, or the woman at the bus stop whom we failed so much as to notice, let alone greet with a good morning smile – was it because she was Asian? Not too far away on the bus stop wall is the sign "Asian go home", or the, long-suffering and dispossessed Aboriginal community whom society so quickly judges to be lazy, good-for-nothings. It is easy for others to be judged while we passively stand by.

They are victims of our shared negative thinking insofar as we tend to devalue and diminish, marginalise, alienate and exclude. And the judged are also the condemned. If we think that way, it is very unlikely that we shall ever be motivated to do anything to set things right. Saying sorry, so as then to receive the forgiveness of those whom our society has over the decades victimized will be as foreign to us as we inwardly think they are.

It is when we are unexpectedly met and received with a welcoming smile on the face of the stranger whom secretly we tend to write off or diminish, or those who suffer as a consequence of our unwitting passive inactivity, that we know ourselves to be judged...but not at the same time condemned. Rather, when we are instantaneously forgiven, accepted, welcomed and received, we know that salvation of God, through the medium of our victim.

And when we begin to open ourselves to ethnic diversity and see value its the culture and life-style of those who belong to other sectional groups, whether racially, or socially, or sexually, or theologically different from ourselves, even the adherents of other religions whom formerly we have tended to look down on or write off, then we know that the salvation of God is at hand.

Closer to home, we have a regular example of the same kind of thing in families whenever we have a family row and we are out of sorts with one another and keep our distance for a while. We do not know how it will be in the hallway when next we meet the one to whom we have said more than we should, or who has been victim of a cutting remark. But when a smile of appeasement and forgiveness allows instantaneously the restoration of the relationship, then it is, in relief, that we know the salvation of Christ and the possibility of new life.

And if we know the salvation of God in this way, via our victims, then we ourselves in turn become the bearers of salvation to others. For the other side of the penny is that as sharers in the suffering of Christ we also bear the salvation of God to those who victimize us by misjudging us, misrepresenting us, unfairly condemning us, putting us down or failing to respect and value us to the point where we feel diminished or alienated and excluded. Indeed, it is in the face of the natural tendency to lash out, strike back, or to demand redress for the minor wrongs done to us, that we in Christ can be the mediators of the grace and forgiveness of God so that the world around us knows the fresh possibilities of new life.

The Easter good news involves a little more than the contention that something remarkable and inexplicable happened to the crucified Jesus. It also involves the affirmation grounded in experience that because Jesus lives, we also live. But it is equally true that because we live in Christ, the world lives also - by our receiving of forgiveness from those whom we tend to victimize and by our offering of the gift of acceptance and forgiveness whenever we ourselves feel victimised.

Clearly, the first step on the way of transcendence is to value and see value in our very own victims and the victims of the society of which, perhaps as bystanders, we are part - those with whom Jesus so closely identified. There is salvation in no one else; only via the victim can we be saved.

Is it any wonder that this truth has been celebrated and proclaimed for two thousand years?