As Christians, we are asked to imitate Christ. How do we do this? One way is to imitate Jesus’s action of holding, carrying, purifying and transforming tension; that is, by taking in the bitterness, anger, jealousy, hatred, slander and every other kind of thing that’s cancerous within the human community, and not giving it back in kind.
In essence, Jesus did this by acting like a purifier, a water filter of sorts. He took in hatred, held it, transformed it and gave back love; he took in bitterness, held it, transformed it and gave back graciousness; he took in curses, held them, transformed them, and gave back blessing; and he took in murder, held it, transformed it and gave back forgiveness.
