“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy … You have heard that it 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.” (Matthew 5:7, 43-45)
“Be merciful, as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:36)
Jesus is asking us to do something that I, quite frankly, have never been able to do on my own. It’s hard enough to love my spouse, to which I am sure every married person can attest. But my enemy? I don’t think so. Love for enemies is certainly counterintuitive. I’ve had a few enemies who have lived rent free in my heart for many years.
In April of 1969, my junior year in high school, a car cruising around the mighty metropolis of Swea City, Iowa (population approximately 750), with four occupants, stopped to ask if I wanted a ride. “Why, sure,” I answered. Inside were four guys, three of them older than me, along with a bottle of cherry sloe gin and a bottle of orange vodka. From there on out, I don’t remember much, except getting dropped off at 2 a.m. in front of my house, with vomit all over my letter jacket. I learned later that I had also vomited all over the back seat of that car.
The next morning, I got a short lecture from my stepdad: “Leave alcohol alone.” (“Don’t worry, Dad, I’ve had my fill of it.”) About the same time, I got a phone call from the only guy in the car younger than me, a real rat, informing me that “I was in trouble now.” Boy, was I! The guy who was driving the car picked me up after school the next day and informed me that we were going to play a game of billiards, and if I lost, I would be beaten up by another older guy. I was not a bad billiards player, but I unfortunately lost 25-21. I was then escorted outside where his friend, a halfback on the football team, and a sprinter on the track team, proceeded to beat the living daylights out of me by knocking me down and stomping on me. And me? I did not lift a hand to defend myself. Oh, the shame!
Then, two days later, another passenger from that night saw me walking home from school, stopped his car, got out, and again beat the fool out of me. And once again, I did not lift a hand to defend myself. Oh, the double shame!
For the record, I had previously dated the girl he was dating, even spent quite a bit of time riding around town with the girl in his car, and I know on that fateful night I must have said something atrocious about her to merit the thrashing. (This girl eventually married the second guy who pounded on me.)
Flash forward 50 years, I started praying for those three guys but forgiving them still comes hard. I have had to run back to the Holy Spirit repeatedly. The third guy, the one who administered the second thrashing, died about a month ago. I sent a message of consolation to his wife via my ’70 classmates Facebook page, but forgiving him still requires a work of the Holy Spirit. This proved to me how difficult it is to forgive enemies, humanly speaking. Impossible, as a matter of fact.
Looking back, I realize now that these two incidents were mysteriously preparing me for my conversion. Hate seethed in my heart for these two bullies. But Jesus wouldn’t let me off the hook. He gave no exception clause. He didn’t say, “It’s OK to hate someone who mercilessly beat you up without cause.” Our Lord clearly says, “Love your enemies.” Period. How in the world could I possibly love people who had shown such merciless violence toward me?
The answer came 14 months later, July 10, 1970. It was at a Bible camp in eastern Wyoming, and the sheet pasted on our Baptist church bulletin board in Bancroft, Iowa said that there was a pond. Just that. A pond. At least, that’s all I remember. My imagination took it from there. “A pond! I’ll go swimming, blow off some firecrackers, kiss some pretty girls. Oh boy!” But once I arrived, I realized they wouldn’t let me blow off any firecrackers or kiss any pretty girls, and I said to myself “This is going to be one wasted week.”
On Wednesday night, an evangelist named Glenn Sykes preached a sermon on Daniel 5, the chapter with Belshazzar and the handwriting on the wall. None of Belshazzar’s wise men could read what the handwriting said, so Daniel was called in. “Mene, mene, tekel upharsin. Belshazzar, you have been weighed in the balances and FOUND WANTING!” (Verses 25, 27, NKJV) The Holy Spirit used that phrase “found wanting” to draw me to Christ. I remember the enemy saying, “You’ve got hold of this pew; you can’t go forward.” And the Holy Spirit’s response? “Well — TAKE IT WITH YOU!”
That night I was saved. That’s a fundamentalist term for a fundamental change. John 5:24 says, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” Suddenly, the Holy Spirit came in and made me an entirely different person. Because He came in, I could now, with His help, obey the command in Matthew 5:44, “Love your enemies.” I became a different person, a merciful person. Strangely, I did this not by trying to be merciful, but by falling in love with the Savior who had shown me mercy and who had forgiven me from a cruel Cross. My hate for my enemies didn’t dissolve overnight but has become supernaturally arrested by a mercy shown to me by our mercilessly beaten Savior. That mercy afforded to me by Christ far outweighs all the wrongs done to me.
Consider our writer’s struggle with mercy. God used two beatings from high school bullies to prepare him to receive salvation. Then, over the next 50 years of memories from that trauma, continued to use those recollections to drive home a life-long message that to apply mercy to those individuals was humanly impossible. Counterintuitively, how does focus on the Cross of Christ (the totality of all that Jesus faced during His trial, scourging and crucifixion), supernaturally arrest any hate we might carry toward people who have wronged us?