When Leonardo Da Vinci painted his masterpiece, The Last Supper, he had a bitter argument with a fellow painter and was so angry that he painted the other man’s face into the face of Judas, so that it would be preserved for ever as the face of the traitor. However, when he came to the supreme moment when he was to paint the face of Jesus, no matter how hard he tried he could not get it right. Eventually he realised it was his bitterness that was destroying his inspiration. So he repainted the face of Judas with another face. Only then was he able to see the face of Christ in his own mind so that he could express it in his masterpiece.
And so it is with us. No matter how hard we try to capture the real sense of God in our lives, we’ll always fail as long as we hang on to bitterness. “Forgive us our sins,’ Jesus said, “as we forgive those who sin against us.’