Ramped Up

"Don't get mad. Get even!"

Popular words for the one who cannot really take a hit. Really, a lot of people aren't satisfied with getting even. They really want to get a "leg-up" on someone else and make sure they're in the dominant position when it's all over with.

The cycle continues. Enemies ramp each other up.

I've been reading Bill O'Reilly's book, Killing Kennedy. I just finished his take on the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962, thirteen days of intense worrying by many in the United States (including Kennedy himself) that a nuclear holocaust was imminent. Today, most of us probably have no concept of how close how close we came to not having a United States by Christmas of that year. Or a USSR. Within minutes, millions of people in this country (and in another thousands of miles away) could have been killed if either Kennedy or Kruschev had given the go-ahead.

What strikes me about this is the rhetoric that was going back and forth. It was forceful and scary. And behind all of it was an unstated thing, it seems--neither wanted to look like the fool in the eyes of their respective nations or in the eyes of the rest of the world. Neither wanted the other to have the upper hand. "Don't get mad... get better!" may have wiped out whole nations.

The ways of Jesus just don't go with the ways of this world. Before the Sanhedrin, as they spat at him, beat him, and falsely accused him, hardly a word passed his lips, save that which acknowledged him as the Son of God, the Christ.

He didn't get mad! That's the thing that amazes me. The most abused man in history did not get mad. He did not retaliate or even hint at retaliation. He could have initiated something much more powerful than a nuke. But he just stood there and took it, the "Lamb led to slaughter" that Isaiah had written about centuries before.

If ever there was One who will not ramp up the rhetoric, incite a mob himself, or strike back at persecutors, it is Jesus. I have to wonder what the world would be like if we truly did the same. That's tough! This nation, "under God," has retaliated swiftly and decisively against those who have done us harm. I get it. "What are we supposed to do, just roll over and expose our belly? Should not those who do unjust things get what's coming? What of the abusers? The child-molestors? The terrorists? Rapists?"

Scripture doesn't tell us that those who do others harm should just be allowed to continue doing harm. Consequences for actions are inevitable. That's not what I'm talking about. The vulnerable deserve to be protected.

But what if we, on individual levels, chose to react differently to those who persecute us? Wrongly accuse us? What if we stopped trying to "get even" or "get ahead"? What if our response to wrong was kindness and prayer, as opposed to lashing back out?

Not that I'm any good at it myself. I have plenty of Walter Mitty conversations where I'm lashing out (in my head) at someone I'm not happy with. I cannot tell anyone to change how they react without asking God to change how I react. This isn't just some global, peacenik rant. It's personal. It's individual. Unless we choose to react differently on an individual level, nothing on a grander scale will ever change.

Lord, help me to respond to attackers, abusers, and those bent on injustice with Your love, Your calmness, and Your dignity. I cannot do it without You.

Jesus. ALL.