There’s an autobiography by David Wilkerson called The Cross and the Switchblade, where Wilkerson is talking about his journey to reach disillusioned youth involved with drugs and gangs in New York City. There’s this one scene where he had approached a young man named Nicky Cruz, who said to him, “You come near me, Preacher, I’ll kill you.” And to this, Wilkerson responded, “You could do that. You could cut me in a thousand pieces and lay them out in the street and every piece would love you.”

I was reading through the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 recently.

In the middle of Matthew 5, Jesus says that he has come not to abolish the law but to fulfill the law. And then he gives several examples of what that means. He uses this pattern, “You have heard that it was said… But I say to you…” And he talks about murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, retaliation, and our interaction with enemies. Here’s that last part, in Matthew 5:43-45.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

You know, I’ve always interpreted this being-sons-of-the-Father business to mean that God would recognize and reward us for our actions. Love your enemies, and God will reward you.

But as I was reading that again today, I realized that I was missing the point. God makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and God sends rain on the just and on the unjust. In other words, God loves his enemies. Even though people defame his very existence every single day, God is still showering them with blessings.

And in that light, when we love our enemies, we are representing God. We become God’s instruments of blessing. God is just looking for ways to love his enemies, and when we submit ourselves to that calling, we become God’s messengers. We become God’s sons. And it’s not that we are God’s sons in the sense that we have earned some position, but rather that we are, as a functioning member of God’s family, representing God himself.

I don’t think Jesus is just spewing out baseless rules for us to follow. He is saying, “Look at what your Father in heaven does. That’s what I want you to do.”

And at the cross, Jesus proved himself to mankind by truly walking the talk. He actually submitted himself to human authority and allowed himself to be killed. He died for his enemies.

You know, there are many people who say that the morality of religion is what matters. Forget the dogma. Forget the stories. Just keep the ethics. But here’s the thing. Only with the dogmatic understanding and belief that God suffered and died for his enemies will we truly have the motivation to follow our ethics. There is no greater motivation for loving your enemies than realizing that you were an enemy of God, and yet you were loved by God.

The world said, “You come near me, God, and I’ll kill you.” And Jesus came near, and the world nailed him onto a cross. And as he was dying on that cross, he prayed for his persecutors, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

That is the Christian call.

– Larry