Love Vengeance

Sounds awful, doesn’t it? Actually, those are the opening words of two different sentences.

1) “Love your enemies.”
2) “Vengeance is Mine says Creator God”

There is a third closely related sentence that I’ll bring in later.

Do you see the connection between the two sentences? The former can only be consistently carried out when we believe that the latter is true. If you understand human nature you’ll soon see that while some of us might be able to sporadically show love toward those who hate us, persecute us and who relentlessly work behind our backs in an attempt to destroy us, sooner or later most of us will fail and fail badly in our attempts to love those who treat us badly.

On the other hand, that doesn't absolve us from trying. We have an example in Jesus who was able to love His enemies and then He said, “Follow Me, be like Me, do what I did in My relationship with others.”

The apostle Paul said, “We can understand someone dying for a person who we believe is worth dying for. And, we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put His love on the line by dying for us while we were still His enemies.”

When you think about how hard you work to deny God’s existence, to destroy His name, to degrade His love, to mock His sacrifice. When you consider how relentlessly you reject His offer of forgiveness and then to realise that He knew this is how you would treat Him and still, He died for YOU, well, “love your enemies” is definitely a command only God is qualified to make.

In another place Paul tells us, “If your enemy is hungry, give him something to eat. If your enemy is thirsty give him a cup of cold water.” This was not the original Paul who said this. In his original state Paul enthusiastically killed his enemies. Like a line in a Bruce Cockburn song, “If I had a rocket launcher I’d make somebody pay,” Paul understood retributive justice. No, this command about serving one’s enemy arose from Paul after he’d come under the influence of Jesus. It was Jesus, after all, who first taught us, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who persecute you.” Unlike any of us, Jesus lived what He preached, forgiving His enemies even as they were killing Him.

Unless you have an actual enemy (it might be your spouse who’s grown to despise you), you won’t really grasp the depth of what Jesus is asking of those who claim to follow Him. And here is where a third sentence, one that I hear repeatedly in counselling, comes in.

“But it isn’t fair!”

Well, no. I suppose it isn’t. But then again the Christian walk has nothing to do with what’s fair or not.

. It wasn’t fair that Jesus died for my sins, but He did it anyway.
. It isn’t fair that I get to spend eternity in heaven, but I get it anyway.
. It wouldn’t be fair if those who hurt us got away with it.
But here’s the thing. Nobody is going to “get away” with anything.

God’s justice will be utterly, completely and totally fair. Our justice, on the other hand, is only rarely and grudgingly fair. That is why it needs to be left up to Creator God.

Knowing, accepting and believing that justice will at some point be carried out is what allows us to adjust our thoughts so that we are able to love our enemies. If God’s justice wasn’t true, sure, and dependable it would be ludicrous, preposterous and yes unfair for Jesus to tell us to love those who are out to destroy us.

Of course, as humans we will never do this perfectly or consistently. I do know this however. Being in a healed and forgiven relationship with Jesus makes for a 1,000% improvement over how wretches like me handled our enemies in our original state. A rocket launcher? I understand. I grew up in a generation that heard the chant, “Burn baby, burn!”

Being in a healed relationship with Jesus opens our eyes to see that we don’t have to set things right. We don’t have to make things fair. We can adopt an attitude that drove Karl Marx over the edge with rage. He called it an opiate. Marx advocated rage and destruction. "Tear it all down and start again!" Ya, right. Build it up again with exactly the same human nature as the first go-round.

Vengeance is God’s job.
Payback is God’s job.
Setting things right is the job of our Creator.

It is not our job to punish those who hurt us.
It is not our job to excoriate someone for doing a less than a perfect job.
It is not our job to get even.

It IS our job to love our enemies just as Jesus loves us.

It’s been my experience that without the knowledge that God is in charge, it is almost impossible to let go of hurts and injustice. The signs that I’m not alone are all around us. Road rage, killing of abortion doctors, even mental health issues. I read yesterday that 25% of youth in Australia are suffering from clinical depression. That’s a HUGE almost unbelievable number! The same article said there has been a 50% increase among youth in Australia in the last ten years in self-harming behaviours (cutting, burning, gouging) requiring medical treatment.

I don’t know what the social changes taking place in Australia are, but:
That’s anger.
That’s rage.
That’s an impotent, frustrated and unfulfilled longing for vengeance. It mirrors satan's attitude perfectly. Could there be a massive move away from God going on in Australia?

For me, an example of loving my enemy would be telling Christopher Hitchens, whose time on earth is being ended by esophageal cancer, that I’ll pray for him; both for the salvation of his soul and for as easy an end to this life as one can have in his circumstance. Hitchens of course would reply, “Don’t forget to sacrifice a cow for me while you’re at it.”

That is why Jesus said, “Let me take care of this stuff. You love. I’ll impart justice.”