Why We Turn the Other Cheek

Having poured out his precious blood for our sake, Christ himself will deliver us from our sin.  Let us not despair about ourselves, nor be cast down into a state of utter hopelessness.  It is a terrible thing not to believe that there is hope of repentance.  A person who does not expect salvation recklessly adds sin to sin, but one who has hope of healing will readily take care of himself thenceforward.  The thief who does not expect such a gift goes off into a frenzy, whereas the one who has hope of forgiveness will often come to repentance.  If a snake sloughs off its skin, can our sin not be sloughed off too?

God loves us, and loves in no small measure.  Do not say, then, "I have fornicated and committed adultery, I have done terrible things, and not once but many times.  Is it possible that he will make a concession for me, that he will grant me an amnesty?"  Listen to what the psalmist has to say:  "How great is the abundance of your goodness, Lord!"  Your accumulated sins do not prevail against the wealth of God's compassion; the supreme physician is too experienced to be defeated by your wounds.  Just hand yourself over in faith and tell the doctor your disease.  Make David's words your own:  "I said, I will confess against myself my transgression to the Lord."  Then what he speaks of next will happen equally to you:  "And you have forgiven the sin in my heart."

Do you want to contemplate God's kindness and great forbearance?  Then listen to what is said of Adam.  Adam, God's first-formed creature, disobeyed.  Could not God have put him to death at once?  Yes, but see what the Lord did in his exceeding love for humankind.  He did indeed cast Adam out of paradise, but he resettled him a little distance off, so that Adam, keeping view that state from which he had fallen and realizing what a change for the worse there had been in his circumstances, might thereafter be saved through repentance.

Truly this is an instance of God's loving kindness, but a small one in comparison with what follows.

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem

-Saint Cyril (386), bishop of Jerusalem, was expelled three times from his see by heretics who opposed his unfailing orthodoxy.