Sweating Revenge
Roller coaster emotions can often be tracked back to poor decisions, which in turn reflect a lack of understanding, wisdom and faith. With that core sentence we can unravel all of the power behind this verse “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19 ESV) Today the very name Judas is synonymous with being disloyal. In our Lord’s final hours, the twelve disciples of Jesus became indignant when He, who knew more than they, allowed a woman to pour expensive ointment on his head. His disciples judged our Christ in that moment and Jesus peacefully explained to them the error of their judgement. We can’t know for certain if this moment of indignation was behind what one of them did, but it’s even harder to rule out. “Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver.” (Matthew 26:14, 15 ESV) Shortly thereafter, Jesus was arrested and condemned. Judas in despair, returned the silver coins, was shown no mercy by the chief priests and proceeded to end his own life. He went emotionally from blind loyalty with total admiration and love, to judgement, indignation, malice and ultimately self destruction. Many others before and since have ridden that same roller coaster.
We are human and as such can never have all of the facts. I’ve wondered if having a jury of twelve of our peers is in part or entirely related to the lesson that those twelve wise men learned in the most tragic and blessed hours of all humanity? Making those mistakes which lead away from God and toward desperation can be avoided. But then how can we ever make relational decisions? Before we choose our friends, employees and marriage partners, don’t we make character judgements? We can and should assess character, commitment and honesty. Yes these are judgements, which in the story above, when incorrect, resulted in a peaceful corrective lesson from the Lord. Vengeance, acting maliciously toward another individual however, had an entirely different and more tragic outcome. Any sort of individual revenge must be completely avoided. Judgement is a powerful weapon against wrong doing and must be handled by objective minds, in peaceful settings with highly skilled oversight. Whenever possible we should assess the obvious, access the probable and accept the fact that we could still be wrong. Seeking the Lord’s counsel is the best resource available to us.
JC Calkins with COMMON SENSE 4 UNCOMMON PEOPLE (share)
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