Soaking up evil

Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye and tooth for tooth’. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also…” Matthew 5:38-39

The high priest stood up and said to Jesus, ‘Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?’ But Jesus remained silent. Matthew 26:62-63

Then they led Jesus away to crucify him. Matthew 27:31

Christ committed no sin , and no deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats… 1 Peter 2:22-23

Here are some words worth focussing on…

“If anyone attacks me, I will be as meek as a lamb. If anyone attacks the church, I will be as brave as a lion. If this is from the Lord, I will not open my mouth... Only by being obedient when arrested could I let all see that I was truly motivated by love.”

Brave, brave words; and, I think, massively impressive. They are reported as written by Pastor Wang Yi after his conviction and imprisonment on false charges by a court in China in 2018. His sentence was nine years. His wife was allowed to visit him for the first time in 2021. It is now 2024. We need to let those figures sink in.

A lot must have happened since 2018, of course. I don’t know if his radiant, Christlike spirit may have been blunted or even, God forbid, broken. But I can only shake my head and deeply admire that spirit.

I used the word “Christlike” to describe Wang Yi’s response to the evil done to him; I think that’s justified as we look at the little collection of verses I’ve put together at the top, taken from Matthew’s Gospel. But it’s a phrase from the 1 Peter verse that perhaps sums it up best: “he did not retaliate”.

Retaliation… How different our troubled world would be if we all refrained from it! It seems so simple in theory – no wars, no petty jealousies and rivalries, but simply the Christlike dignity of refusing to hit back, whether in personal or in national terms. But of course it is in fact far from simple. A nation that perpetrates an atrocity on an enemy clearly should be brought to some kind of justice; likewise somebody who deliberately kills or injures another person. Even relatively trivial wrongs shouldn’t just be brushed under the carpet as if they don’t matter.

But that’s for another day. What matters for most of us is to work out what non-retaliation means in practice for us individually. For, let’s be honest, we are all prone to want to “get our own back” when we feel we have been wronged. Anger is very natural, and sometimes justified; but we need to decide prayerfully how to deal with it, for it can so easily curdle into hatred and a desire for revenge.

I recently read this in a book by a Christian writer: “Retaliation wins a victory for wrongdoing, by recruiting the victim into the army of hatred and violence”. In other words, when I hit back at that person I’m angry with, I just keep the poison of animosity alive; it remains, so to speak, in circulation and ready to do still more damage. Indeed, it increases in intensity.

That writer went on: “Wrong propagates itself by chain-reaction, and can be stopped in its career only by someone who absorbs it and lets it go no further”. Perfectly put!... “someone who absorbs it and lets it go no further”. And I have to ask myself: am I such a “someone”? For isn’t that act of absorption exactly and precisely what Jesus was doing before the high priest when he remained silent? - indeed, exactly and precisely what was going on on the cross? Evil being patiently absorbed, not viciously bounced back: that’s non-retaliation.

I’ve never seen the inside of a boxing-gym, but somehow the image of a punch-bag comes to mind. Boxers need to develop the ability to punch with ferocious force; but if they practiced that with human opponents no doubt there would be regular deaths. But they can batter to their heart’s content that padded bag which is designed to soak up whatever force is directed against it.

Well, no-one likes the thought of being reduced to a mere punch-bag! Yet in reality isn’t that exactly what Jesus allowed himself to become on Calvary?

Our world is full of evil. The question to face up to is: Am I adding to it or reducing it? Am I bouncing it back into ever-wider circulation, or am I soaking it up and thus reducing its impact?

Never hit back: that’s the basic message. But the Bible offers us something even more - it is always positive, never merely negative. Here is Paul in Romans 12:21: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”. To not retaliate is a great thing – but how much greater it is to respond to evil not only by soaking it up but also by answering it with love and kindness!

Jesus teaches us not only to tolerate, or ignore, or put up with our enemies, but to love them and pray for them (Matthew 5:43-48).… Yes, really.

Father, we pray for Pastor Wang Yi and his family, and for the countless others in various parts of the world who are suffering unjustly and cruelly. Please give them grace to persevere, and the comfort of knowing that you love them and that your eye is upon them. Amen.

I was angry with my friend;/ I told my wrath, my wrath did end./ I was angry with my foe;/ I told it not;/ My wrath did grow…

William Blake (1757-1827)