Easter and Enemy-Love

Easter and Enemy-Love--May 6, 2019

"Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, 'Ananias.' He answered, 'Here I am, Lord.' The Lord said to him, 'Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.' But Ananias answered, 'Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.' But the Lord said to him, 'Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name'." [Acts 9:10-16]

This is where things get dangerous.  This scene makes it clear that Easter makes enemy-love possible.  No, more than that, stronger than that: if Jesus is risen from the dead, then we may have no choice but to love our enemies--in real actions, with real risks, and with real faces and hands.

Maybe we should let that sink in for a bit, before we dare proceed any further.  If we believe that Jesus is alive (and the New Testament writers are all unanimous on this point), we should be prepared for what will happen when he shows up in your life and tells each of us, any of us, point blank, to risk doing good to people who have been hostile or vengeful or rotten toward us. Not to excuse their hostility or vengefulness or rottenness, but to refuse to answer it in kind with poison of our own. There is no other risen Jesus but the one who shows up to Ananias in a vision and commissions him to be the one to heal Saul of Tarsus, the number-one persecutor of the followers of Jesus in this early moment of the church's history.  Followers of the risen Jesus are meant to be different in this unique way: we break the cycle of returning evil for evil, just as Jesus refused to deal out death to his executioners, but died praying their forgiveness and rose having born their sin.  In the words of Dr. King, "By turning your enemies into friends, you wipe out all your enemies."

So, what will we do when Jesus shows up in our lives and insists that we are called actively and concretely to do good to those who hate us?  This isn't just a hypothetical--this is what it will mean if we believe that the same Jesus is really alive and risen still today.

The stakes really are just that high here in this scene from Acts.  This is the pivotal moment when the head persecutor of "the Way" (that's what they called us back then, when Christianity was a dangerous underground movement, and before we were more known for arguing in public, being jerks toward the wider culture, and hosting AA meetings in our church basements), a guy named Saul, was knocked off his high horse (literally) by the risen Jesus in a vision, then called to become a follower of that same Jesus himself, and struck temporarily blind in the encounter (almost like Jacob getting simultaneously blessed and punched in the hip by an angelic stranger after wrestling with God all night).  Saul had been dead set on destroying the fledgling Christian community, but the risen Jesus would not let that be the end of things.  Not only did Jesus show up to get a hold of Saul (who would soon just be going by his Greek name Paul), but Jesus also appeared to a Christian miles away, Ananias, to summon him to go seek out Saul and offer him grace.  The risen Jesus sends one of his loyal, faithful followers to go find their number-one enemy, explicitly for the purpose of aiding and helping him, and beyond that, to welcome him into the community of Jesus' followers.  

This was nearly too much for Ananias.  Not only does he think about how much he has been nurturing a hatred for this Saul, who had been rounding up whole families and arresting them for indefinite detainment, but Ananias also thinks of how other Christians might call him a traitor for showing this kindness to Saul. They might be upset and take their anger out on Ananias!  They might turn on him!  They might simply say, "This is taking things a bit to the extreme, isn't it, Ananias?  I mean, we're all for love... in general... but when it comes to actually doing good to someone who has been plotting against us, we have to draw the line for our own self-preservation, don't we?"  Ananias knew that listening to the voice of the risen Jesus could lose him a lot of friends as well as putting him in grave danger.  

But Jesus insists.  He has a way of doing that.  And Ananias then does go and find Saul. He helps him, he heals him, and even baptizes and feeds him.  He shows love--real, tangible, and concrete--to this man who had been an enemy just hours before.  He does it at his own cost, incurring the risks of losing friends who think it sounds crazy, but he does it because when the risen Jesus shows up to tell you something, you do it.

And to me, this is just how vital the resurrection of Jesus is for the whole Christian faith.  Without the resurrection, nobody would have dared imagine inviting your enemy inside your home and hoping he would become your friend.  There was no way anybody would have dared dream of opening their doors to Saul.  He would have remained the enemy of the church til his dying breath, and no Christian would have worked up the nerve to reach out to him... except that Jesus really is alive and really did instruct Ananias to go.  I don't know how you explain the story of Saul without Jesus' resurrection--without a risen Jesus, no one would have imagined taking the risk of going out to meet Saul at all, much less to offer healing.  The critical difference was Jesus.  

And so it will be on this day, too.  If Jesus is still dead, you can carry on with your bitter and vengeful life with business as usual, and nobody will challenge you to break that cycle.  But if Jesus is indeed alive, then we should be prepared that he will show up and direct us to answer evil with good, hatred with love, and Me-and-My-Group-First rottenness with Christ-like compassion.  And when he does show up with that dare, how will we respond?

Answering that question just might change the course of your life... maybe even of history.  Like I say, this is where things get dangerous.

Lord Jesus, come among us and send us where you will--not only to family and friends, but even to those with whom we have been enemies.