Wednesday, 13 April, 2005

Taken from 1 Peter 2:20-23
"…But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God's approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps…. When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly."

Almost every system of morality for sale out there is either based on rewards or rules. "Be good, because you'll get a prize if you do." Or, "Do this (or don't do that), because that's what the rules say will give you value." And when it comes to having to suffer, those systems offer the same quick answers: "you should endure hardship because there's a pot of gold waiting at the end for you," or sometimes we hear, "you'll only suffer if you're breaking the rules-it's punishment for someplace you've crossed the line." How strange, then, to hear from 1 Peter that the reasons we have for living in a new way are about neither incentives nor injunctions. Our way of life comes from who God in Christ is revealed to be. We are called to turn the other cheek, not in order to win a heavenly lottery (although there is the unconditional promise of eternal life), but because of the Roman cross where God in human flesh turned the other cheek for us. We are called to love our enemies, not because following that rule will surely make the world a better place (although it might), but because while we were "enemies" of God (Romans 5:10), God loved us nevertheless. How radically different from all other voices clamoring for our attention-and how wonderfully freeing!

Connection: Before we stumble through the question, "What should I do?" in any given situation, and even before we ask the popular wristband's question, "What would Jesus do?", we first have to let the grace sink in that comes from the question, "What has Jesus done-already?"

Lord Jesus, teach us to find in the scars you still wear both the promise of your love for us, and the freedom to make it our love for others.