Question of the Day:
Do I take comfort in my acts of vengeance?

There has to be a way out of the stupidity of violence and vengeance!  When both of us are blind, we both fall into the pit, as Jesus says.  Vengeance seems so logical, but it doesn’t really work.  It doesn’t advance human history, or finally our own agenda.  It only delays and disguises the problem. The devil is now on both sides.

The wonder of the resurrection stories in the Gospels is that Jesus exhibits no vengeful attitude toward the authorities or his cowardly followers. He is not even judgmental toward them.  Afterwards, his followers never call for any kind of holy war against those who killed their leader, which is almost unknown in world history. Something new has clearly transpired.  This is not the common or expected story line.  A new Spirit is abroad.

Even Gandhi and Martin Luther King said that they learned their nonviolence from Jesus, but most of us church people are still catching up with him.

Adapted from Hope Against Darkness, p. 27