Love Your Enemies
44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you
How much love do you have for Emanuel Kidega Samson who shot several at a church service at Burnett Chapel Church on Sunday? How much love do you have for members of ISIS? Those are philosophical questions for most because like me you don’t know anyone directly impacted. That is not always the case.
On the evening of September 15, 1999, just before 7:00 pm, a crazed gunman entered Wedgwood Baptist Church and opened fire, killing seven and wounding seven. Among those were youths who were attending a youth activity, a “Saw You at the Pole” prayer rally. From the time he entered the building, the gunman fired over 100 rounds from two different handguns and exploded a homemade pipe bomb in the Worship Center where the youth activity was being held. The gunman then sat down in the back of the Worship Center and ended his own life.1 Friends of Karen and I were members of Wedgewood when this happen and both of them were at the church when the shooting happened. This was horrifying when it happened to know our friends were members of the church.
So often our enemy is not someone from the outside but someone next door, across the room, in the bedroom beside, or the other side of the bed. To me, Jesus’s call to love our enemies is easy when they are outside. The call becomes much more difficult when the enemy is close or in your family. I think “love your enemies” is the most unreasonable thing Jesus says. And that’s saying something, because it’s coming from a guy who also says stuff like “eat my flesh and drink my blood,” “hate your mother and father” and “sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor” (John 6:56, Luke 14:26 and Matthew 19:21, respectively).
But love your enemies? Come on. Even when they are in your family, loving your enemy is a tall order. To love someone who has wronged you continues to wrong you with malicious intent; not erroneously, and plans to wrong you. This is who we are called to love. Jesus knows all about loving the near one who plans to hurt you. Jesus knows exactly how you feel. The same Jesus who said, “Love your enemies” had his enemy in his presence when he said this. This wasn’t some grand philosophy. This was real. Jesus would love Judas to the last; washing Judas’s feet before the Seder meal.
How could he do this? Grace. The same grace that He offers to us today, He offered and lived to those who acted as His enemies. Those who were outside (Sanhedrin, Romans, and the crowd), and to those who were close (Judas, Peter, and the other ten). This grace that Jesus lived and has given is the power of salvation and life. It is this grace, through us, that gives us the power to love our enemies. To love those who plan to hurt us. To love those who are very near and hurt us in ways that no one else could. It is this grace and no power of our own that empowers us to love our enemies, from without and within.
- Who has hurt you? Do you love them?
- Who do you consider your enemy? Do you love them?
- Who do you rely on for the ability to love your enemies?
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