It is the day after the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics in Paris, and if you’ve spent 15 seconds on social media, you’ve seen the pictures of the blaspheming of The Lord’s Supper, one among scenes including a golden calf, the rider on the pale horse, etc. One response in particular caught my attention when the person posted pictures of it and said:
“I’m sick of this. I’m a Muslim and I’m sick of this. Why aren’t Christians doing anything? Why are you weak?“
Great question. I want to take the remainder of this post to think through my answer to that question. I like it when other random people post things that make me think through my theology and affirm or tweak my positions.
The answer boils down to this: we are not weak; we are being like our Lord. Jesus Christ was a man that I don’t think anyone would consider “weak”. He cleared the temple of huge crowds twice, He spoke to a massive storm at sea that had pro fisherman scared and it obeyed, demons recognized his power and authority and obeyed, and he raised the dead to life (Lazarus and himself) in a show of ultimate power even over life and death. More power and strength than anyone can imagine.
Yet when he was attacked, or ridiculed, or mocked, or reviled, he gave us his own personal example as to how to respond. That example for us is:
When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
1 Peter 2:23 ESV
Instead of weakness, he had the power to explode every molecule of his revilers in a fiery meltdown as he uncreated them in an instant. But when Christ walked this earth, he was living a perfectly righteous, God-honoring life every second of every day. He did this in order to have a real, active, historical, lived-out life of perfect obedience; a life that he could then impute to the bankrupt accounts of His sheep. He did that so he could graciously grant to us what we can’t do for ourselves. At the same time, he was our example for us to strive towards of what a God-pleasing righteous life is like.
And in his role as that perfect Adam, the one who wildly succeeded where the first Adam failed, how did he respond when they reviled him? He did not return the reviling. He did not rip them apart. He didn’t riot. He didn’t burn down a city. He didn’t start throwing punches. He didn’t pull out a weapon. He didn’t threaten. What did He do? He “continued entrusting” it all to His Father in Heaven.
The Apostle Paul understood this as he tells the church in Romans 12:
17Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Carefully consider what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18If it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone. 19Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written: “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord.“
That “entrusting himself to the one who judges justly” in 1 Peter isn’t a weakness on our part. It is simply a recognition that the judgment belongs to another. As Paul teaches us here, we are not to avenge ourselves for one really good reason – we are to leave room for GOD’S wrath. God is the judge of all the earth and this omnipotent, omniscient God states that the vengeance is HIS. He promises He will repay those who revile Him, His Son, His work, His people. We are not to take his job, we are to let Him do it.
Reminds me of Jesus’ teaching his disciples in Matt 13:24-30 of the enemy that came in and overseeded a man’s wheat field with tares (weeds) and when it all sprouted and came up, they saw the mess that had been intentionally created.
27And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ 28He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”
I find this relevant because the servants of the master, which would be us as Christians, are eager to “go get ’em – go rip all those weeds out of the ground.” When we see our Lord blasphemed, the same type of feelings can well up in us.
But that is not the way of our master.
It takes a peculiar strength – a strength of faith – to not take up arms and go fight. But we’re to let the Lord wreak His vengeance, not ours. We are sinful ourselves and we can’t do it rightly. Just like in this parable where the master says, “NO. You can’t do this and do it correctly and you would end up ripping out some good wheat also.” We can’t know the heart, we can’t know who are truly His. We can do more harm than good. So, we do like verse 30 and wait – wait in faith on the master to do the reaping and HE will separate and then judge and avenge.
Jesus the Christ, as fully God, will do this in his future second advent on this earth. As He stated during his first advent:
26 For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; 27 and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. 28 Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, 29 and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.
John 5:26-29 LSB
So my response when I see blasphemy is to shudder for those doing it because of verses like “Vengeance is MINE, I WILL REPAY”. When I saw all that went on, my response was “Lord, they really have NO IDEA who it is they trifle with!”. It should cause compassionate prayer in us that they will repent before they are crushed and the perfect vengeance of God is meted out for eternity. We all deserve it because we’ve all in our own various ways blasphemed God as well. But this God has an offer on the table for those who will lay down their arms in this blasphemous fight against Him. A “limited time” offer of mercy and grace and adoption. Repent, take it, and live. Refuse…and vengeance belongs to Him you refused.
So, it is not weak to not retaliate. It is a restraint so we don’t go off doing in our own sinful way what God said is His role that he will fulfill with perfect justice. Our role, our response, our “do something about it” is simply this – we continue to preach and teach and proclaim the uncompromising truth of the Bible (all of it) and let The Lord do the sorting, saving, and eventual avenging. It’s not weak, it’s faith.