Rowan Williams:

This is what God’s mercy is: an unconditional gift of incalculable cost.  It can only be embodied in history in human shape, in the shape of a life and a death seen and accepted as something entirely defined as God’s gift to all; a life which is a total offering both to God and to men and women, so total that human limitation becomes irrelevant.  A human life like this is not just a matter of history, it is the abiding sign of God’s presence in the world.

Poetics of Prayer @Izak