It wasn’t a bomb—even “the mother of all bombs—that captivated the television commentator’s attention. It wasn’t the promise of a president or the sight of a goose stepping military phalanx. It wasn’t the sight of parading protestors of even of praying believers. No, the well-known Egyptian Muslim journalist* listened in stunned and rapt silence to the widow of a man killed in recent church bombings. Through her tears, she expressed her faith, her prayer that God would forgive the perpetrators of the tragedy and that she herself forgave them.

He, trained to be an objective observer and reporter of fact, was forced to say with awe in his voice and perplexity on his face, “Egyptian Christians are made of steel…how great is the amount of forgiveness you have…these people have so much forgiveness…if it was my father, I could never say this…these (Christians) are made of a different kind of substance.”

And that’s why we have Easter. That’s why Jesus could say, “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.” That’s why we are called to proclaim and practice the same forgiveness. Yes, we are “made of a different kind of substance.” The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you (Romans 8:11), and so—impossible as it seems to human understanding—the call upon us is as great as was the call upon Him: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

*Forgiveness Incarnated on Vimeo