Pay back time

I will swiftly and speedily return on their own heads what they have done (Joel 3:4) 
We are suddenly sucked into a world of retaliation. Tyre, Sidon and Philistia are asked if they have acted out of revenge and then 're-revenge' is promised in return. God will pay back his people's tormentors. This sounds very odd to the modern ear. God in Christ loved the world. Vengeance has no place in love. So how can we make sense of this? Well, let's start with Joel. 
Joel lived in a time when justice was revenge. This idea is sometimes known as a blood feud and still happens in gangs today. If one of your own is hurt, you do not rely on a disinterested law enforcement to enact judgement, you go out and hurt back. Without a police force, or international law, or any of the constructions of modern justice, the only reparation you get is if you paid someone back. In this context, God's actions are appropriate justice. Indeed, his promise to pay back the evildoer, releases his people from any need to join in this endless cycle of violence. 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord'. God will fight for them, they only need to rest in him.
Even today, pay back is the foundation of justice. CS Lewis' wonderful little essay The Humanitarian Theory of Justice points out that without it there is no connection between punishment and crime. The smallest crime could mean an endless sentence, and the largest none. As the thief on the cross noted, 'We are getting what we deserve'. I'm not sure we'd agree that theft warrants crucifixion but the point is clear: justice is receiving what you deserve.
A few years ago our family were hurt badly. Someone we counted as a friend betrayed us. If I had been offered payback then I would have taken it with open arms, so the sense that God will repay helped as a first step. I could leave it with God. Soon though it became clear that the comeuppance I vaguely hoped for wouldn't happen. So there was a next step. I needed to hear again the Lord's prayer, 'Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us'. I needed to let go of pay back and grab hold of 'love back'. 'Father forgive them for they do not know.' says Jesus, and it needed an echo in my heart.
Some today, like Joel, are stuck on pay back. They wait for God's vengeance, not realising that this is missing the whole point. It's God's not theirs. Their role is forgiveness, as God forgives them. And God's vengeance, God's pay back? I suspect like all the Old Testament prophets, Joel saw only a partial view. He saw through a glass and very darkly, but what he saw was the cross. God's pay back is not vengeance at all, but to take the sin of the whole world on himself and bring back his people out of the darkness of sin. In Christ we do not get what we deserve, for he has taken it all on himself for us. So in Christ we do not seek to give others what they deserve, for he has given himself for the whole world.

Fresh life in spring blossom

Comments

  1. WILLIE...! =(^..^)=19 May 2020 at 10:03

    The payback period refers to the amount of time it takes to recover the cost of an investment. Simply put, the payback period is the length of time an investment reaches a break-even point...
    So..That's a simple and honest way of describing the saying..

    But..The way this is written, refers to the more evil way of 'pay back time' violence, murder, assult,
    and so for.. So..Payback time is when someone has to take the consequences of what they have done in the past. You can use this expression to talk about good or bad consequences...

    I'll leave you with this...
    Many people have the impression that the Bible is simply an outdated book of fairy~tales and contradictions. We are told that biblical stories are fine for children, and perhaps they even contain some moral value. “But, surely” says the critic, “such stories cannot be taken seriously in our modern age of science and technology. After all, there are too many Bible contradictions." Or so they say...
    And..There are 144 self-contradictions in the Bible..Or so they say...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We are in good company

Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your fathers? (Joel 1:2) As I scrolled through the endless news on the coronavirus, as I expect we all do, I came across a comparison with measles. According to The New Statesman, measles is far more infectious. Each person with measles passes it on to an average of 10 others. With the coronavirus the number is about 2.5. Then it struck me. Before vaccination, before antibiotics, our 'fathers' must have regularly experienced such infections sweeping across the world. The speed of spread would have been slower and the depth of cover less, but the effects must have been the same: anxiety and isolation. In Eyam in The Peak District, the villagers found the plague in their midst. Instead of fleeing the village and taking the disease to the city, the rector, William Mompesson, persuaded them to go into self-isolation. Food was left for them at the boundary stone by the villages around, paid for with coins disinfect
Read more

Time for school

Image
I am going to rouse them (Joel 3:7)  What a lovely image. God is like a mother rousing her children to get them ready to go to school. She wakes them from a deep slumber, encourages them out of bed and gets them up and going. In Joel it has that extra sense of rescue. God is rousing them for a journey. And not any journey. They have been sold into slavery and he has bought them back. Now it is not the slave driver with his whip who barks them out of bed but their loving father gently interrupting their dreams and calling them home. In about a week, many of our youngest children will be roused from their beds to get ready to go back to school. The government have become convinced that the time has come to call the children back to the classroom. The evidence is on their side. Where it has been tried, infection rates have not risen significantly. The limited data we have on child infection suggests that the youngest of our population do not just shrug the virus off easily, but generally
Read more

Under judgement

Image
I will gather all the nations...to the valley of Jehoshaphat (Joel 3:2)  In my early days of Christian ministry I was given some sage advice. I was smarting under the yoke of unjust criticism and a friend pointed me to Dick Lucas' Three Es of Criticism: expect it, examine it, endure it. It's funny. I think I've got reasonably adept at examining even the most absurd attacks and finding useful sources for self-examination and inspiration. And I am always hurt by criticism, unfair or not, but have many resources for speeding its departure. No, the one that still catches me out is its unpredictable appearance. Just when you really think you're on top of things and making a decent job in a difficult situation, there it is. Lighting out of a clear sky. I suspect most people feel like this about the judgement of God. I've lived a decent life, been fair in my dealings, kind to my neighbours and a good husband and father, or wife and mother. And then I'm meant to believe
Read more