No Cheap Gifts For Christmas
In an episode of the comic strip “Peanuts,” Charlie Brown cracks open his piggy bank. He says to Lucy, “Look, I’ve got $9.11 to spend on Christmas gifts.” Lucy is not impressed as she says, “You can’t buy something for everyone with $9.11, Charlie Brown.” Charlie Brown says, “Oh yeah? Well I’m gonna try!” “Then” Lucy continues, “they’re sure gonna be cheap presents.” Charlie says with absolute conviction, “Nothing is cheap if it costs all that you have.”
On the very first Christmas, God gave us all that He had: Himself, in the person of his Son, Jesus. Thirty-three years later Jesus would give us all that he had: his very life. Now it is our turn to give a gift to Jesus, and it should, likewise, cost all that you've got.
Revenge Always Fails
In a series of articles on the greatest acts of revenge, grunge.com writes,
Mariya Oktyabrskaya was a telephone operator, the wife of a Soviet army officer, and the proud owner of a T-34 tank, with which she used to kill enough Nazis in World War II to earn her the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union." After the outbreak of war, Mariya was evacuated to Siberia, while her husband went off to fight. He was killed almost immediately, though the news didn't reach Mariya until nearly two years later. Driven by rage, and with nothing left to lose, Mariya sold her house and belongings in exchange for a T-34, which she donated to the Soviet Union under the condition that she be the one to drive it.
... Though her unit was initially skeptical of what they saw as nothing more than a publicity stunt, their opinions quickly changed after her first battle, in which she eliminated numerous machine gun nests, artillery guns, and the Nazis who manned them. When her tank was hit and immobilized by heavy enemy fire, she immediately jumped out to repair it. For this action, she was promoted to Sergeant, though "Goddess of Steel" might have been more apropos.
Unfortunately, after many battles and many dead Germans, her luck caught up with her in January of 1944. She was killed during a battle near the village of Shvedy, while making yet more repairs to her immobilized tank. She did not, however, die before eliminating several machine gun nests, trenches, a self-propelled gun, and yet more Nazis for good measure.
Revenge is a powerful motivator. It has the power to motivate a wife to sell everything, buy a T-34 tank and kill Nazis. What it doesn’t have the power to do is to motivate us to forgive, to heal or to restore. Although Mariya Oktyabrskaya's story is one of great courage, there is nothing redemptive about it. That's because there is nothing redemptive in revenge.
Love, on the other hand, also has the power to motivate us to make great sacrifices. Jesus was motivated by love when He left it all behind and came to earth to fight the powers of sin and death. The difference is that once He accomplished His mission, He secured forgiveness, healing, and restoration for all mankind.
No doubt the Apostle Paul was thinking of Jesus’ example when he wrote, “love never fails.”(1 Corinthians 13:8).
"Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord" (Romans 12:19).
Through the Looking Glass And What Alice Found There
You’ve heard of and maybe have even read Lewis Carroll’s book ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. But I run into very few people who have read the prequel, THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE, though you may have heard the poem Jabberwocky which is in it.
Alice walks through a mirror and ends up in a house that is a mirror image of her own, and has strange mirroring properties, so she has to learn to reorient herself. She finds she has to walk left when she wants to go right. Jabberwocky is written backwards, so Alice can only read it by holding it up to a mirror. Everything is backwards. To get to where you’re going, you have to walk in the other direction.
Alice is then invited into a chess game with a queen, with the promise that if she wins, she herself can be a queen. In the end, having won, she finds that power is unsatisfying and petty. It is an alternate reflection of what would actually make her happy. She’s gone in the wrong direction.
Those are Jesus’ Kingdom instructions. If you want to get to life, you have to walk towards death. If you want to get to freedom, you have to walk towards powerlessness. If you want to get to eternity, you have to take up your cross.
"Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39).