You Have Heard That It Was Said…Part IV

by Elaine Poproski

As Christians, we know we’re supposed to deal with things like anger and hate and we’re supposed to love our enemies, turn the other cheek, and generally just forgive those who cause us pain and anguish. The deeper the hurt is, the more difficult it is to get to that place of forgiveness. Holding onto the anger caused by that kind of hurt, especially if we didn’t deserve the hurt, is something we too often rationalize as righteous. And we can usually even find verses in the Bible to justify holding onto it.

I remember once when I’d been hurt by someone. I was really angry. And I wanted the person to suffer. Or I at least wanted some time with my anger to really sit in it and be mad at the person before I had to figure out how to forgive. It felt like a gift from heaven that the passage of Scripture I was preaching on that weekend was from Romans 12: “…it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’” Oh, how I delighted in those words. I had a whole conversation in my head that went something like this:  “Just you wait, God is going to get you! He promised. He will repay you for what you’ve done to me!” My anger turned to an ugly kind of glee. But then God spoke. Not through the words on the page, but almost out loud, right into the middle of my imagining the horrors He would reign down upon my enemy. I can’t say exactly the words He spoke, but here’s what I knew immediately: my delight in God’s vengeance upon my enemy was at least as wrong and as sinful and as deserving of God’s wrath as was that of the one who had hurt me. My enemy and I were the same. Let me tell you, what I was looking for from God was some kind of justification of my pain and some kind of affirmation that I would be avenged. Instead, what I got was a kick in the head (metaphorically speaking) that knocked my eyes off my enemy and onto me instead. I am so thankful for that kick in the head. It brought me to a place of forgiveness. It reminded me that the alternative to forgiveness was bitterness – something I never want to be.

This Sunday we’ll be dealing with Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount that are all about our tendency as sinful people to desire revenge when a wrong has been done. Jesus speaks words like, “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemy” and “pray for those who persecute you.” These are hard words. So as you prepare for Sunday, I invite you to spend some time taking an honest inventory of the hurts you are holding onto. And spend some time with God, releasing those hurts. I know this is not easy, especially if the hurt was substantial, but as with all that Jesus says, there aren’t loopholes, there aren’t ways to get around it, and we are always better for giving in to His ways. So when you come Sunday, allow yourself to hear these words, not as theoretical, interesting statements of pacifism or some other “-ism”, but hear them as God’s invitation to those darker places in your own heart. Come prepared to give up your hurts and your anger and your pain and leave them behind.