It's not easy

"You have heard that is was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?"

- Jesus (Matthew 5:43-47)

It not easy, living out this command. Is it? How in the world are we supposed to love those whose hate us? Those who live to destroy us? Those who have a total disregard for our safety? Those who oppose us at every turn? Surely we don't have to pray for them!

I've written about a similar topic a few times before, mainly about people who offend us or wrong us over and over. About how often we are expected to forgive them. Are there limits to forgiveness? That's the question addressed, for example, in this post.

But the question on my mind tonight goes deeper. How about those who despise us with a white hot hatred? Love them? Pray for them?

Herod, who killed children trying to eliminate the King of the Jews while he was still a baby. Joseph Stalin. Adolf Hitler. Osama bin Ladin.

And Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Yes, in a Boston hospital lies a man who has done unspeakable harm to our innocent people. He is murderer and a terrorist. He has damaged our national psyche.

So how would you feel if he repented? If he were overcome with the love and mercy of Jesus and surrendered himself to the one true God? If, because of this, you met him in the coming Kingdom as your brother?

Could you handle that? It's not easy to think about. Unimaginable.

Let's go a step further: Can you actually pray for it to happen?

That's the kind of radical love and forgiveness that Jesus proposes in the above passage. The way we can know that we are his follower is that we can - through his power - love like he does. Anybody can love those who treat them well. Anybody! But only someone with the power of the resurrection living inside of them can love their enemies. That's the benchmark.

Jonah faced this dilemma. He was called by God to preach to the wicked town of Nineveh. He ran from it because he didn't want them to repent. Sound familiar? After a little incident with a huge fish, he finally obeyed God and preached to them. And his greatest fear was realized - they listened! And here's what he prayed to the LORD:

"Isn't this what I said, LORD, when I was still at home? This is what I was trying to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live." (Jonah 4:2-3)

 Wow! He is really ticked off that God forgave his enemies.

Again, I can identify. Because I don't have the power to love my enemies. But the Messiah's power inside me does. And that's why I have to lean on him.

It's not easy. And there's nothing wrong with wanting justice to run it's course. But that's not my job. My job is to love, forgive, and pray. Pray for my enemies. Pray for them to come to a knowledge of the truth. Jesus said so...and by his power we can do it.

Processing

December 7. April 19. September 11. And now April 15.

So many dates. So many events where most of us will remember exactly where we were when we "heard the news." And today was another one.

It is hard to put into words just how shocked and sickened we all are as we process what happened at the Boston Marathon today. It's hard to believe people can be this sick, this callous, this evil.

But I as process it, I keep coming back to two thoughts. Two things that I already knew but it's at times like this that I find out whether they are just platitudes or I really believe them.

1. The good world that God created is full of brokenness.
2. God is sovereign and working out his good and perfect will in everything that happens. Everything.

Does he care? Absolutely. He entered the world in the person of Jesus to experience death and suffering on our behalf, and the power to overcome by his resurrection.

Is he going to stop it? One day, yes. In his good time, when he has accomplished all his purposes.

It's hard to trust this at times, isn't it? When you see the devastation in Boston today. When you go to places ridden with incredible poverty, despair, hunger, and disease. When you realize that around the world incidents like this happen almost every day in places like Iraq and Somalia, killing innocent bystanders every day. Where is the love?

We Americans tend to believe the the ultimate good is safety, comfort, and freedom from suffering. Jesus said something quite different. The ultimate good comes from how we react to suffering, and the good things God does in us when we experience it. So when awful, awful things happen, that is when the Lord of the universe does his best work.

Reports of Marathon Runners that crossed finish line and continued to run to Mass General Hospital to give blood to victims #PrayforBoston
— NBC Sports Network (@NBCSN) April 15, 2013

I see evidence of it already. The way people ran toward the explosions to help people rather than running away. The way some runners went directly to the hospital to give blood - even though they had to be almost dehydrated. People thinking of others rather than themselves - this is where we begin to see God working his will.

So I grieve. And pray. But I also wait anxiously to see what the Father is going to accomplish. Because it's going to be awesome.