To turn the other cheek

Hermine Schellen
January 2, 2012

Today I was reflecting on 'Self-denial' and reaching the 'Zero point', terms that are very familiar to us.

And for the first time it dawned to me, that 2000 years ago Jesus was talking about the same thing, however he only used a different term, namely "turn the other cheek".

I remember years back when I was a simple Catholic, this idea with turning the 'other cheek' never really appealed to me. In my view this was a sign of weakness, not having the courage to fight back, or fight for your right, your dignity, your honor etc….

But when I look at this today then I can see a complete different dynamic behind.

If we take a closer look at Jesus life, then we can notice that in fact he was practicing that, and so did Aboji, from the early years of his life, ones he received his calling from God through Jesus. In fact Aboji was very strict and none compromising about that. By reading his Auto biography, this becomes obvious.

Now why is God asking us to do that? Imagine somebody spits in your face? Immediately two strong feelings will come up. First we would feel very disgusted, next we would feel extremely humiliated. None the less, if we are to apply the rule of "turn the other cheek", it's like saying 'thank you, why don't you do this again?" Sounds insane doesn't it? However, if you take a closer look at this whole scenario, what this really entails, then you will clearly see that one will only be able to 'turn the other cheek' in such moments, when one completely denies himself. Truly Self-denial is much more related to the 'turn the other cheek' type deal, then just denying one's personal desires at times. Such denial will not be sufficient for us to truly reach the zero point. We need to apply the principle of 'turn the other cheek',

In moments we are being hurt, 'stepped upon', humiliated etc………only then can we reach the point of complete Self-denial or Zero point. And unless we reach that point, no recreation or true resurrection can occur of our True Self, the Original Human. I mean in a substantial way, not just in fantasy or spiritual sense. This is my firm believe. Therefore on the contrary to before, today for this reason, I welcome Jesus words that ask us to "turn the other cheek".