History is full of power plays. In high school I had a class called, "Wars." It was mostly a recounting of twentieth century history. So much of history is about killing the right people. Of course the tricky part is determining who needs to be killed. The French thought the aristocrats had to die. The Nazis thought the Jews had to die. The Allies thought the Nazis had to die.
Vladimir Putin thinks his political enemies have to die. Washington policy makers think the radical Muslims in Iran have to die.
Worldly power is all about killing the right people. Unfortunately the "war to end all wars" didn't. America used to stand for freedom, justice, human rights. Now America just stands for brute force winning the day. And the U.S. is killing people because it can. It has the power to kill alleged drug smugglers with drones. It has the power to kill U.S. citizens who are protesting. It has the power to capture heads of state and kill people in the process. It has the power to blow up meeting rooms of supreme leaders.
There is no shortage of people who need killing. Especially when everybody gets to add to the list. Maybe we are all on someone's list. Killing the right people never ends. It just leads to more people who need to be killed.
Jesus found himself on the hit list for lots of people. Judeans of many stripes put him on the hit list. And the Romans came to agree.
In contrast, Jesus had no hit list. He pled for forgiveness even for his executors. He even gave up his life for the sins of others. He absorbed the hate pointed toward him.
He calls his followers to, well, follow him. We need to follow him with forgiveness. We need to give up the "kill the right people" mindset. We need to see that the real power is love. That sounds so sappy. It sounds out of touch. It sounds like the fast way to lose almost anything.
And yet this is the way Jesus chose. He did lose. And then he defeated death itself. If we follow him, we will follow the way of love and sacrifice. We will give up killing the right people. And we will have to trust God himself to work it all out.
