AN IMPOSSIBLE, ABSURD COMMAND

"But I tell you who hear me: 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, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you." Luke 6:27-31

"Impossible!" we say. "Absurd!" we protest. And so it is. To love those we hate is not merely something that is difficult, it is something that simply cannot be done. And yet, while we instinctively recoil at these words, there is a part of us, a deeper part, that is strangely drawn to them. It is as if something within us says "That is love ... I see it now." And we begin to wonder if we've ever loved at all ... or if we've ever been loved at all. And find ourselves feeling strangely homesick.

In that instant, in that momentary flicker of nostalgia, we are shown volumes about our human condition. We finally see the leprosy of our heart, unable to feel as we ought, thinking that hate and resentment and vengeance were the strongest of our emotions. We see the moral paralysis of our will, seeing for the first time how we ought to live, and yet utterly unable to move in that direction.

And in that same fleeting moment we see this very love, this impossible, absurd love, displayed on the stage of human history. For Christ himself would do us the greatest good even as we treated him with greatest malice. He would pronounce upon us cosmic benediction over the deafening din of our furious cursings. He would pray for us in the breaths he took between our mistreatments. He would turn to us his other cheek again and again, as he endured our repeated beatings. And it would be his coat and tunic that would be torn from him as he dangled in naked humiliation ... yet he would demand nothing in return.

He told us "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Instead, we did unto him what ought to have been done unto us.