At some point we’re going to crash into the agonizing reality that people can be difficult and weak. They’ll say things and do things that disappoint us, and then we’ll have a choice to make: Will we continue serving them regardless of their foibles and flaws, or will we become judgmental and begin to retreat?

If I were to name the central challenge facing us as believers in our day, it’s that instead of seeing people as image bearers of God whom we’re called to see and serve and love, we’ve come to see them as the distraction, the enemy, the cause of our dis–ease and distress. When I was a kid, the national pastime was baseball; today, I’d say it’s disgrace. We disgrace anyone and everyone who has an opinion that is different from ours. We disparage them, we dehumanize them, and, figuratively at least, we kick them to the curb.

Two factors are exacerbating this dynamic these days. The first is that in the Western world we have allowed a scenario to unfold where we can go through an entire day—sunrise to sunset—without having to encounter another human if we so choose… or at least another human being besides the ones living in our house. Sure, unless we live in the remotest of areas, we will be forced to see people. But we certainly don’t have to interact with them as we buzz through the coffee shop drive–through, communicate via text or email, have lunch brought to us by DoorDash, receive household necessities and groceries via anonymous front–porch deliveries, and come down from all that nonhuman interaction by watching two hours of TV at night. We’ve anonymized our lives, and we’re paying a steep price as a result.

Here’s the second factor that’s doing us no favors: social media as a stand–in for real relationships with living, breathing human beings.

I came across an article recently from The Atlantic that assessed Facebook’s “progress” this way: “Facebook’s early mission was ‘to make the world more open and connected’—and in the first days of social media, many people assumed that a huge global increase in connectivity would be good for democracy. As social media has aged, however, optimism has faded and the list of known or suspected harms has grown: Online political discussions (often among anonymous strangers) are experienced as angrier and less civil than those in real life; networks of partisans co–create worldviews that can become more and more extreme; disinformation campaigns flourish; violent ideologies lure recruits.”recruits.

Here’s what the article is saying, in essence: social media is killing the human part of humankind. Which is a dangerous turn of events for one key reason: when we stop seeing each other as people, we stop forgiving each other for doing the things that people tend to do.

To understand just how important this practice of forgiveness is in the lives of believers like you and me, we have to head back to the cross of Jesus, where forgiveness was elevated to divine art.

You’ll recall that despite never once sinning, Jesus was made to suffer a brutal death on a Roman cross before an angry crowd who was scoffing at him. The scene was vile. Like me, you probably widen your eyes in incredulity with increasing frequency as you take in online news headlines these days, frozen by the feeling that we keep sinking to ever–deeper lows. It’s helpful to remind ourselves that no singular event in human history will ever be worse than what happened to Jesus on the day of his crucifixion. It is the low beneath all other lows. Which makes Jesus’s response all the more instructive. Would we have it in us to react the same way?

Luke 23:18 tells us that the crowd that had gathered shouted for Jesus to be led away and killed.

John 19:1 says that Jesus was flogged.

Matthew 27:28 says that Jesus was stripped naked and then clothed with a scarlet robe.

John 19:3 says that Jesus was slapped repeatedly in the face.

Matthew 27:29 says that a crown of thorns was set atop his head and that a staff was placed in his right hand. The soldiers then knelt in front of Jesus, mocking him for claiming to be the king of the Jews.

Verse 30 says Jesus was then spat on and struck on the head with a staff again and again and again.

In verse 31, Jesus’s robe was removed, and his own clothes were placed back on his body.

John 19:16–17 says that Jesus was led away by soldiers and made to carry his own cross on his back. If this verse is referring to both beams, the load would have weighed upward of three hundred pounds.

Verse 19 says that a sign reading “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” was fixed to the top of Jesus’s cross, jeering him for saying he was God.

Verse 24 says that the soldiers and guards then cast lots to see who got to keep Jesus’s clothes.

He would go on to have vinegar forced into his mouth. To cry out to God in agony, begging for relief. To have his side pierced with a spear, causing blood and water to pour from his body. To be made the ultimate scapegoat for wrongs that were not his to claim. Yet in response to these and other atrocities, did he fire back in rage? Did he mock those who were mocking him? Did he spit at those who were spitting on him? Did he slap those who were slapping him? Did he shame them for their wickedness that day?

He did not. What he did do was speak twelve world–changing words.

Crucifixion was a death of suffocation. What a person actually died from was not the nail piercings or the broken bones. It was the collapsing of the lungs from hanging there, a sort of drowning without the sea.

In this position, the only way for Jesus to gather enough air in his lungs before speaking was to hoist himself up a few inches, inhale quickly, and exhale his words in a breath. Saying anything was a Herculean feat. Saying what he said was more staggering still. Luke 23:34 says that Jesus, after going through all the pain and effort of pulling himself up to speak, had this to say: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Forgive these humans for their broken humanness.

They have no clue what they’re doing to me.

Forgive them for their waywardness.

Forgive them for their spinelessness.

Forgive them for their selfishness.

Forgive them for their sin.

Forgive them for punishing me.

Forgive them for persecuting me.

Forgive them for ridiculing me.

Forgive them for killing me.

They don’t know what they’re doing, Father.

They do not know what they do.

I’m deeply thankful that God chose to forgive me when I was neckdeep in my sin. Aren’t you grateful for that fact? In Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, he said, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

I look on that scene involving those soldiers and officials being so cruel to Jesus, and honestly all I can think about is how like them I once was. I was an ungrateful, snotty–nosed, arrogant, rebellious punk of a kid when Jesus rescued me. I was the least deserving of a gift of anyone alive when he gave me the most precious gift. You know what? I didn’t even want that gift at first. Can you imagine the hubris in me? I didn’t think I needed it. I didn’t know I wanted it. I all but chose to reject it. But praise God, he persevered.

God sought me out. God drew me in. God had mercy on me. God forgave me for my sin. And then he turned to me and said in essence, “Now go and do the same.”

I will say this as plainly as I know how: We have been shown mercy so that we can show mercy to those in need. We have been loved so that we’ll go love.