"What God does for us" - Dorothy Sayers

Jesus: Come here, Thomas. Put out your finger and feel my hands. Reach out your hand and thrust it into my side. And doubt no longer, but believe.

Thomas (with absolute conviction): You are my Lord and my God.

(The crucial word is spoken at last, and received in complete silence)

Jesus: Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

Peter: (who has suddenly become aware of some appalling implications): Master—when I disowned you—when we disbelieved and doubted you—when we failed and deserted and betrayed you—is that what we do to God?

Jesus: Yes, Peter.

James: Lord, when they mocked and insulted and spat upon you—when they flogged you—when they howled for your blood—when they nailed you to the cross and killed you—is that what we do to God?

Jesus: Yes, James.

John: Beloved, when you patiently suffered all things, and went down to death with all our sins heaped upon you—is that what God does for us?

Jesus: Yes, John. For you, and with you, and in you, when you are freely mine. For you are not slaves, but sons. Free to be false or faithful, free to reject or confess me, free to crucify God or be crucified with Him, sharing the shame and sorrow, and the bitter cross and the glory. They that die with me rise with me also, being one with me, as I and my Father are one.

John: This, then, is the meaning of the age-old sacrifice—the blood of the innocent for the sins of the world.

Jesus: Draw near. Receive the breath of God. As the Father sent me forth, so I send you. The guilt that you absolve shall be absolved, and the guilt that you condemn shall be condemned. And peace be upon you.

From Dorothy Sayers’s twelfth play, “The King Comes to His Own,” in The Man Born to be King: A Play–Cycle on the Life of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (p.336–7)