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The most responsible
Of course, the most responsible example of humanity in all of history was the example of Jesus Christ. It is through him, by him, and in him that we have hope. What is most beautiful--indeed so beautiful that it is painful to behold--is that he demonstrated his love not despite evil but through it. Hung on a cross to die for the crime of love, we see the nature of evil played out in the most graphic example of its ugliness. Through it all, his only response was to forgive those who acted out their wickedness upon him.
Jesus came into this world knowing what it would cost him. Though he was the purest of men, he bore on and in his pure being the marks of untold evil, that we might be made pure. Jesus died not just to transform those who we all recognize as evil, the OJ Simpsons of the world. He died to renew even those whose self-righteousness makes them blind to their own need.
"...for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth."
(John 18:37)
God's purpose from the beginning, forged in a deep love of every individual, was to share His glory and His love with us forever. Through the person of Jesus Christ, He gave a rebellious humanity the opportunity to be personally and individually delivered from evil.
"What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
(Romans 8:31-39)
When Christ confronted evil at the cross, he did not confront it head on. As Ravi puts it, evil did not bounce back from the impact, evil stopped. Christ absorbed evil and loved through it. God can use the ugliness and horror of wickedness to display His love. He loves us through evil. As Christ hung on the cross, he prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." What an example of the beauty of God's perspective compared to the typical human response!
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