For June 12th:

“There was nothing beautiful about his appearance….” Isaiah 53:2

“In 1960, a pastor in East Germany wrote a play called The Sign of Jonah. The last scene dealt with the Final Judgment. All the peoples of the earth are assembled on the plain of Jehosaphat awaiting God’s verdict. They are not however, waiting submissively; on the contrary, they are gathered in small groups, talking indignantly. One group is a band of Jews, a sect that has known little but religious, social, and political persecution throughout their history. Included in their number are victims of Nazi extermination camps. Huddled together, the group demands to know what right God has to pass judgment on them, especially a God who dwells eternally in the security of heaven.

Another group consists of American blacks. They too question the authority of God who has never experienced the misfortunes of men, never known the squalor and depths of human degradation to which they were subjected to in the suffering holds of slave ships. A third group is composed of persons born illegitimately, the butt all their lives of jokes and sneers.

Hundreds of such groups are scattered across the plain; the poor, the afflicted, the maltreated. Each group appoints a representative to stand before the throne of God and challenge his divine right to pass sentence on their immortal destinies. The representatives include horribly twisted arthritic, a victim of Hiroshima, a blind mute. They meet in council and decide that this remote and distant God who has never experienced human agony is unqualified too sit in judgment unless he is willing to enter into the suffering, humiliated state of man and endure what they have undergone.

Their conclusion reads: You must be born a Jew; the circumstances of your birth must be questioned; you must be misunderstood by everyone, insulted and mocked by your enemies, betrayed by your friends; you must be persecuted, beaten and finally murdered in a most public and humiliating fashion.

Such is the judgment passed on God by the assembly. The clamor rises to a fever pitch as they await his response. Then a brilliant, dazzling light illuminates the entire plain. One by one those who have passed judgment on God fall silent. For emblazoned high in the heavens for the whole world to see is the signature of Jesus Christ with this inscription above it: I have served my sentence.”

Brennan Manning, Bread and Wine, Readings for Lent and Easter, 2003; excerpeted from The Signature of Jesus, 1988, 1992, 1996