Christ, in his brotherly love, forgave all repentant sinners and he knew better than anyone that the darkest feature of human existence is the terrible reality of sin. On two occasions he said to a man and a woman who approached him in faith and love, 'Your sins are forgiven you' - and he plainly meant: 'I forgive you your sins'. The learned scribes were horrified by these words and argued in their hearts, 'Why does this man speak thus? He blasphemes. Who can forgive sins but God alone?' How right they were - and yet so utterly wrong! Christ was the only man in all human history to make two stupendous claims: that he was himself sinless and that he had power, in his own right, to forgive sins. We can hardly blame the scribes for not anticipating the mystery of infinite love in the God-Man, the brother of all, including sinners.

All our sins of omission or commission are denials of God. God created us because he first loved us and all his demands on us - his commandments - are manifestations of his love. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that God is not offended by us 'except insofar as we act against our own good'. The commandments, then, are not kill-joys but signposts to liberty and happiness. Our sins cannot harm God but most certainly did harm, in a most devastating way, God made man - Christ - and brought on his agony in Gethsemane.

In Judas we see at its darkest and most tragic the mystery of free human will, deranged and blinded by sin. He was called to greatness, he could have been St Judas lscariot but instead the most pathetic traitor. The terrible crime of Judas was not his treacherous kiss of betrayal but his suicide in despair. He knew all too well that he had sinned gravely in betraying a totally innocent man - and strangely he confessed his sin to the enemies of Christ - but not to Christ himself. He, Judas, with his very limited capacity for love, could never have forgiven another who betrayed him as he betrayed Christ. He judged Christ's love by his own most limited love, and that meant the denial of Christ's infinite love, surely the ultimate human catastrophe.

In his agony of Gethsemane, our brother Christ who died for us all, saw not just one Judas coming but an endless stream of Judases, each precious and dear to him, who from pride or for gold would betray him through the centuries. The most harrowing and ineffable of Christ's sufferings in Gethsemane were due to a mystery of love which, in blind faith, we adore but can never understand. He, the only sinless man ever, became, so to speak, profoundly identified with the sins of all. St Paul, a man who could speak with awful realism, did not hesitate to write: 'For our sake, God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might be transformed into the holiness of God'.

Christ is indeed the brother of us all, even identifying himself with sin and us sinners.

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Used with permission from St Paul's Publishing © 1999