Today's readings are Deuteronomy 1.19-36 ( http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Deut.+1.19-36 ) and Matthew 5.21-48 ( http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Matt.+5.21-48 ).
Today I am writing while thinking and praying about a former student of mine who was attacked and killed less than a day and a half ago. There's a clear realization at times like this that the world is evil. People are bound in sin and they act upon that, sinning against other people. Sinning against themselves, too. And we often think of the sin that people commit against us. I know the family who is enduring the shock of losing their teenage daughter is thinking about the fact they, not to mention their daughter, have been sinned against.
There's a lot of evil out there. But did you notice someone missing from the paragraph above? Have you noticed that same someone missing from comfort you have given hurting people or comfort you have received from hurting people? Where's God? Did anyone notice that when a person sins against another person he also sins against God? And though every one of us has done things in our life which absolutely deserve human anger and retaliation, God has never once done anything which is unjust or which in any way deserves anger or retaliation. That's simply not the kind of God we see in Scripture. The picture is clear. We deserve evil. God does not.
Yet we look at the revolutionary things Jesus says in Matthew 5. We'll skip over the fact that because anger makes you liable to judgment we are to go be reconciled with anyone who might be angry with us (a different take than the assumption so many people make reading just verses 21-22). We'll go straight to verses 43-45. Here it is in the ESV. "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. "
Why do we pray for those who persecute us? Why do we love our enemies? That's how we show ourselves to be sons of our Father in heaven. How offensive are my enemies to God? How offensive am I to God? Yet I would hardly die willingly at the hand of an adversary, to satisfy that person's anger at me. I would hardly give myself over to be abused by a cruel person. But our Lord and Savior has given himself over to the hands of evil people to suffer and die. And he has done it not because he couldn't avoid their anger, not because he had no way of escape, not because of his weakness. He did it specifically because it was the only way to take their sins upon himself and bring them forgiveness.
Lord, let me love those whom you have loved because you loved them and gave yourself for them. Let me forgive their sin against me as you have forgiven my sin against you. Let me look to your forgiveness in thanksgiving and praise.
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