He Broke The Cycle Of Vengeance - Christmas Vignettes 05/12/20

Welcome to Christmas Vignettes 2020, a short daily reflection on Christmas and its meaning for Christians

Evil is not a real thing the way Good is. I’m not saying that Evil is not real at all, I mean that it doesn’t have substance or meaning quite in the same way that Good does. Evil has no substance on its own, it’s the perversion of the actual thing. So for example, lies are a perversion of truth, adultery is a perversion of holy matrimony, and death is the perversion or undoing of life itself. 

If this is the case, then it tells us something about the concepts of vengeance and justice. Vengeance is justice perverted. It is justice tainted with wrath, bloodlust, and brutality. 

Human vengeance is the opposite of God’s justice. God’s justice is final, but vengeance is perpetual and endless. God’s justice is fair, it renders each their due, but human vengeance is unbalanced and disproportionate.

A while ago, I read an article about an Albanian teenager who has spent his entire life imprisoned inside his family’s house. He has never been able to set foot outside because the instant he leaves his home, someone will try to kill him. Many years before, his father killed another man, and according to the ancient laws of blood feud in that part of the world, the victim’s family is allowed to exact revenge by killing the murderer or any male member of the murderer’s family. Because this boy’s dad was a murderer, his life is forfeit, ruined, over before it started. You gotta read the whole article, it’s devastating.

It’s not always this dramatic, but on this side of eternity we are all too familiar with the cycle of vengeance. Vengeance is like a disease. You get it, but in the process of it working itself out within you, other people around you catch it. It’s contagious. As you express yourself through retribution, you are getting other people sick, you are sneezing hatred onto them, you are making them both a victim of revenge and its newest perpetrator. 

Vengeance pollutes the heart and fills the world with hate. How can we arrest this cycle? The only way to break the chains is to choose not to strike back. To lay down your arms. To eat the cost and forgive. 

Jesus broke the cycle of vengeance. “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing!” When someone harms you or someone you love, the desire to punish, to exact revenge is so powerful, so natural. It shouldn’t be hard to appreciate the magnitude of Jesus’ mission. “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”

When Christ was born into that manger so long ago, the world was opened to a new rhythm, a new paradigm of living that we hadn’t known before. We can turn the other cheek. We can answer hate with love. We can pursue peace amidst bloodshed. It started with him. He made it possible. And he is going to complete the work. Vengeance will give way to peace and justice.