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From the newsletter ... |
What is the hardest question you have ever been asked?
What are the key insights of phenomenology? For me I stumbled across my hardest question half way through one of those self answer quizzes found on training courses. The instructions for the Myers-Briggs test were quite clear: 70 simple questions demanding yes or no answers and they all have to be answered in 15 minutes. Question 47: What is more important, mercy or justice? For a moment my hand froze over the tick box. Surely both are equally important but so different. How on earth can anyone say? Just a few seconds left before I had to move onto the next question or risk failing the test altogether. Which box would you have ticked? I know that my wife ticked mercy and I selected justice. And I came out with a personality profile shared with Margaret Thatcher and my wife came out in the same grouping as Mother Teresa! How would God answer? You see if God is perfectly good how can He accept any imperfection in his universe without compromising that perfect goodness? We do not have to look very far to see how every day we humans fall short of the glory of God. Just one unkind word to a loved one compromises God's perfect goodness. Yet God loves each and every one of us and desperately wants a deep and personal relationship. This in spite of all our shortcomings and failings when measured against a standard of perfection. You see justice and mercy are two sides of the same coin and essential characteristics of God. They seem impossible to reconcile but in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that is exactly what has happened. God so loved the world that he has sent his only Son to one place, Israel, at one time, 2000 years ago, to reconcile mercy and justice. Of his own free will Jesus lived a blameless life of service and love but willingly took upon himself an agonizing death so that, with the demands of justice met, all humanity can be freed to enjoy God's love and mercy. Now and forever. On second thoughts perhaps the hardest question we have to answer is the one posed to us all by Jesus: Who do you think I am? Now how would you answer that one? Cogges Parish | Other articles | Previous issue | 
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© 2001; Published in Cogges Parish monthly newsletter, number 260, March 2001 | |