Show Undeserved Love
This morning, we hear from our Savior some difficult teachings and commands that our sinful natures immediately balk at: love my enemies, turn the other cheek, pray for those who have hurt me?! How can our Savior ask these things of us? Where is God’s justice? Won’t this kind of behavior encourage evil people to continue taking advantage of me? These are questions that we struggle with because what Jesus tells us today goes completely against the wisdom and reality of our world.
The world operates on the principle that people should get what they deserve if they have done something to hurt us. We are obsessed with the idea of justice and fairness. Think of all the cliches we have that describe this: getting even, settling the score, an eye for an eye, etc. Or consider how many of our superhero myths deal with the idea of someone gaining powers to right a wrong that was done to them. The attitude of the world is if someone is nice to me, I’ll be nice to them. If someone hurts me, then I’ll hurt them.
Jesus calls his followers to a higher standard. Jesus commands us to do more than just love those who love us or treat us well because even sinners do that. Jesus commands us to love all people even our enemies, even those who have hurt and harmed us physically, mentally, or emotionally. Jesus reminds us that God’s kingdom is not about getting what we deserve, God’s kingdom is about getting what we don’t deserve. God’s kingdom is a kingdom of grace. Jesus calls us to show the same undeserved love he has shown to us to others.
O how our sinful hearts hate this command of our Savior. We know how difficult it is at times to show love to those we love and care about. Jesus is asking us to do something far more difficult. He is commanding us to “Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, offer the other too. If someone takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes away your things, do not demand them back. Jesus is commanding us to do more than just show love to some abstract person who we might consider our enemy. We are told to show love and forgiveness to those who have personally hurt us.
This is a hard thing to do. We all have people in our lives that we would be happy never seeing again. They have hurt and wounded us in some way and that pain is still raw and real. We don’t want to forgive them. We want to hurt them the way they have hurt us. We don’t want God to bless them. If anything, we want God to punish them for what they have done to us. We foolishly demand that God be harsh in his justice forgetting how terrible it would be if God acted with justice toward us. In our pain and anger against this person who sinned against us, we forget how often we sin against God. We do not deserve God’s love, but his wrath and judgment.
We also fail to show undeserved love to those who have only wronged us in minor ways. Think of how quickly we lash out in anger against those who slighted us in some way. We scream and rage at the person who cut us off in traffic. We say an unkind word to the overworked store clerk who didn’t solve our problem fast enough. We fire off an angry email or harsh reply to a post because we want the other person to be hurt the way we have been hurt. We are impatient and demanding with our friends and families because they haven’t fulfilled our needs and our desires. Instead of showing undeserved love we conform to the patterns of the world and strike back at those who have wronged us.
But we often fail to show undeserved love to others. We know the good that we should do and fail to do it. We are not kind and loving to others. We don’t put forth the minimal effort to thank someone for helping us or offer a kind word to a stranger. We aren’t quick to offer help and assistance to someone because we don’t know that we will get anything in return. We are often oblivious to the needs of others because we are too absorbed in our own busyness to notice those who could use our help. We are often quick to help those who we know will help us, but slow to help those who we know will never repay us and may not even appreciate what we are doing for them.
These commands of our Savior are a bitter reminder of how bad we are at showing undeserved love to others. We daily fail to mirror the love of our Savior. And yet these commands of Jesus also remind us of the amazing and undeserved love he showed to us.
As the perfect Son of God Jesus showed perfect, absolute, and utterly undeserved love to his enemies. The Gospels reveal to us the amazing love of our Savior who offered the love and forgiveness of God to those who were his enemies. We see how he tried again and again to call the Pharisees and teachers of the Law to
repentance. We see how he offered Judas, who he knew, would betray him the opportunity to repent. We know how Jesus forgave Peter for betraying him and Paul for persecuting him. Jesus never failed to be loving and compassionate. Jesus was perfect and we see this perfect and undeserved love of our Savior on full display during the week of his passion.
Jesus asks us to show the same kind of love he showed to his most bitter enemies. Jesus showed undeserved love to the very people who tortured and crucified him. When Jesus was arrested, he was beaten, flogged, spit on, and humiliated. He could have called down twelve legions of angels to fight for him, yet Christ turned the other cheek. Christ allowed the Roman soldiers to take all his clothing and watched as they gambled for his belongings. Christ showed undeserved love for his enemies as he asked God to forgive the very people who had nailed him to the cross.
All of this Christ did for us. By nature, we are enemies of God. Yet Christ endured the pain of the cross and the torments of hell for us, his enemies. We are born dead in our trespasses and sins and are by nature enemies of God. Every day we continue to sin against God in our thoughts, words, and actions. Yet God in his great mercy showed undeserved love to us by sending his one and only Son to suffer and die for us. Christ lived a perfect life in our place so he could offer himself as a sacrifice for our sins. Jesus endured the horror and agony of the cross and suffered the torments of hell so that he could save us who are by nature his enemies. All the times that we have failed to show undeserved love to others have been paid for with the blood of Christ.
This is the reason that we daily drown our sinful nature in the waters of our baptism. We strive each day to love our enemies as Christ commands because we know the amazing love that has been shown to us. We know that we are not worthy of the grace that has been shown to us and so we show that same grace to others. We love our enemies because we know that by nature, we are enemies of God. We forgive the sins of those who have sinned against us because we know the amazing debt of sin that God has forgiven us.
As followers of Christ, we seek to imitate the love of our Savior. We look for ways to serve rather than being served. We hear the words Jesus speaks to us this morning and strive to pattern our life after the life of our Savior. We give without expecting to be repaid. We pray for those who have hurt us. We refrain from demanding justice against those who have wronged us. We do not repay evil with evil but instead, seek to overcome evil with good. As sinners, we are not good at doing these things. We often conform to the pattern of the world and repay evil with evil. When we fall into sin we repent and turn to the cross knowing that all our sins have been forgiven by the death of our sinless Savior.
We live in a world that tells us to be kind to those who are kind to us and to do good to those who are good to us. The wisdom of the world tells us to repay evil with evil. Jesus calls us to live a different way. Jesus commands us to love all people even our enemies. This is hard for us. This is contrary to the way the world tells us to act. It is only because of the love of Christ in our hearts that we are able to follow the commands of our Savior. Our new man desires to do the will of God and love our enemies. We want to forgive as we are forgiven and so we pray each day that God would give us the strength to love as he loves us. We take courage knowing that by mirroring the love of our Savior we are showing others the amazing love that is found in Christ alone.
Romans 5:8- But God shows his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.