Kierkegaard on Christ and the Ethics of Helping

Søren Kierkegaard,
by Luplau Janssen  (1869–1927).

"With Him [Christ] is rest, and He makes no difficulties, He does but one thing, He opens his arms. He will not first (as righteous people do, alas, even when they are willing to help)–He will not first ask thee, ‘Art thou not after all to blame for thy misfortune? Hast thou in fact no cause for self-reproach?’ It is so easy, so human, to judge after the outward appearance, after the result–when a person is a cripple, or deformed, or has an unprepossessing appearance, to judge that ergo he is a bad man; when a person fares badly in the world so that he is brought to ruin or goes downhill, then to judge that ergo he is a vicious man. Oh, it is such an exquisite invention of cruel pleasure, to enhance the consciousness of one's own righteousness in contrast with a sufferer, by explaining that his suffering is God's condign punishment [John 9:2], so that one hardly even dares to help him; or by challenging him with that condemning question which flatters one's own righteousness in the very act of helping him. But He will put no such questions to thee. He will not be thy benefactor in so cruel a fashion. If thou thyself art conscious of being a sinner, he will not inquire of thee about it, the bruised reed He will not further break [Matt. 12:20], but he will raise thee up if thou wilt attach thyself to Him. He will not single thee out by contrast, holding thee apart from Him, so that thy sin will seem still more dreadful; He will grant thee a hiding-place within Him, and once hidden in Him he will hide thy sins. For He is the friend of sinners: When it is question of a sinner He does not merely stand still, open His arms and say, ‘Come hither;’ no, he stands there and waits, as the father of the lost son waited, rather He does not stand and wait, he goes forth to seek, as the shepherd sought the lost sheep, as the woman sought the lost coin. He goes–yet no, he has gone, but infinitely farther than any shepherd or any woman. He went, in sooth, the infinitely long way from being God to becoming man, and that way He went in search of sinners." 

~ Søren Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, 1.1.2, pp. 19-20.