The prophet Isaiah described Jesus when he wrote:
He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem…He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. – Isaiah 53:3,5
Jesus’ life was marked by hardship and pain. He was an itinerant teacher, without a place to lay his head. He was misunderstood by His own family, discredited and despised by His peers, and ultimately executed by the leaders of His day. He took the weight of mankind’s sin upon Himself, and with His shed blood on the cross, washed us whiter than snow.
On Easter night, John’s gospel says that Jesus appeared to His disciples, who were hiding in a locked room. He showed them his wounds and then said to them:
As the Father has sent me, so I send you. – John 20:21
Paul’s ministry mirrored his Lord’s, in the ways he could control – and pertinent for today – in the ways he’d rather it didn’t. Paul writes to the church at Corinth:
To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. – 1 Corinthians 4:11-12a
Paul’s life is an incredible example for anyone choosing to take Jesus up on His words in John 20:21. If Jesus’ life was one of hardship, if Paul’s ministry was one of sacrifice, who am I to deserve anything else? Paul was run out of town, he was stoned by dissenters – multiple times! – and all the while, funded his own journeys to receive such mistreatment. So why am I questioning God’s goodness when I’m stuck in rush hour traffic, or cleaning up spilled Cheerios for the third time in a day? Have I lost perspective?
Even more incredible than Paul’s example is his response to his numerous hardships:
When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. – 1 Corinthians 4:12b – 13a
What did it mean for Paul to respond like this? In traditional Middle Eastern culture, retaliation was considered a mark of self-respect. Kenneth Bailey writes in his book Paul Through Middle Eastern Eyes, “For centuries the Islamic world has granted the right and indeed affirmed the duty of taking revenge to preserve honor.” For Paul’s Jewish colleagues, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” was still observed. But Jesus’ sacrificial death helped Paul develop a new response. Now Paul responds with grace and blessing, instead of revenge.
Our culture affirms payback, too, doesn’t it? I think about our culture’s love of the ‘anti-hero’ character in a movie, or our affinity for a good revenge song. We want to preserve our reputation, and we want justice to prevail when we’re wronged! But what would it look like for us to follow the ministry of Jesus and Paul, to respond with a kind word of blessing?
In our current moment of division and hostility, what would it mean for us to take Jesus seriously and allow ourselves to be sent into the world as He was sent? What insults and bitterness could end with us, though it be at great cost to us, because we refused to respond in kind? Let’s look to Paul this week, and consider him when he says:
Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. – 1 Corinthians 11:1
