Dehumanisation

Had a blood test today.. It was so painful... I think the nurse was inexperienced... The entire process was so painful that I felt pain with every single drop of blood leaving me.. I am usually quite amazed by how painless the procedure is... In contrast to having to fall on the floor and bleeding through a wound.. Normally, it would be so much more painful if that much blood is lost... Today, I really felt every single 'pain' that was required to extract that amount of blood.. as if it was through a wound.. It is excruciating.. Actually intended to catch a movie after the blood test... but it left me feeling so weak, I had to head home instead....

You must really wonder, how much determination Jesus must have had to tolerate that much pain for us... Imagine... all his skin was ripped off by the whips... he was marred beyond recognition... And in that state, he had to still carry the heavy wooden cross up the hill.. Imagine... I find that blood test painful... And sometimes I find sparring painful... But Jesus had it so much worse... and the thing is... he never had to bear with it... it's not his punishment... He was without sin.. He went through all that torture... because he loved us... He was dehumanised... the Son of God... who is greater than all man on earth... was DEHUMANISED... imagine that..

Have you ever wondered how humans in general.. can look at the same object and have so many different points of view or rather, judgement of that object? Imagine the following 'object'... Life... Human life...

At the hospital you see it... so many people struggling to stay alive... struggling to help give birth to healthy babies.. When a baby is borned stillborn... you see parent traumatised and crying... Just a few steps away... you see another couple booking an appointment for an abortion... Yet, an even greater contrast comes when people deal with criminals.. Somehow, society teaches us to dehumanise people who do bad things... Major bad things... It's like once you do something wrong, you become a monster (someone like the orcs in Lord Of The Rings), killing them is ok, they are JUST orcs...

Yes... Society teaches us that... And when you try to question society as to why these people who were once respected as 'one of us' is treated so poorly, society replies "If you don't do something about this problem, other people might get hurt." They forget that the person they are attacking is actually also a human.. and by punishing and dehumanising him/her, they are in fact trying to let one man carry all the pain and punishment that would have otherwise been inflicted on other 'innocent' people.. In the end, we did not at all reduce the total amount of human suffering... we transferred it to that one man (the criminal)... and we are so proud of ourselves for doing that...

The ideal state is of course, being able to remove that 'predicted suffering' by counselling the 'criminal' and teaching people around him how to live with him.. This way, its a win-win situation... everyone is respected... and we humans.. who are in-built sin machine (sin=falling short of the mark (perfection))... will become more secure, because we know that even if we should sin greatly one day.. society will be more tolerant of us... that will not in fact, make us want to sin more... it does the opposite... it makes us into more tolerant and forgiving people... More relaxed.. less serious... because we are no longer so desperate in trying to prove that we are the in-people.. the people deserving of human rights.. we are not like the 'criminals'.

Changing the world does not have to occur in one dramatic blow... You don't have to do big things and be in HIGH positions to change the world... In fact, it is the small people doing small things.. that ultimately make a lasting impact... Don't underestimate small things...

God's grace will empower you to do the amazing. =)