If we had always been his faithful friends we might think that to some degree we deserved his self-sacrificing generosity.  But No: our sins have turned us into rebels, so that we could be won back only by an infinitely poignant spectacle of Divine love and generosity – and that meant the Cross.

On that Good Friday when they nailed his hands to make them powerless, they unwittingly endowed them with the compelling power to draw us sinners to himself and to bring us home to his Father.

When we entered this world we already belonged to God because we were his handiwork.  In the words of the Psalmist, “Your hands have made and fashioned me…” (NRSV, Psalm 119:73).

But now he has a double claim on us, for when we by our sins had passed under the effective control of the power of evil, God the Son came into this world to rescue us; and with his own pierced hands he paid the price of his coming.  So St Paul reminds us, “…you are not your own…you were bought with a price…” (NRSV, 1 Corinthians 6:19,20).