Stress strengthens. That is a physical fact. It is also a
spiritual truth. Stress strengthens us. When we face
opposition, we grow. When we deal with differences, we
become stronger than we were. Strange as it may seem,
and unpleasant though it may feel, give thanks when you are
opposed! Stress strengthens; enmity empowers; and
hostility helps growth.
My wife is going through a series of physical therapy
treatments. Some while ago she damaged a muscle coming
down a ladder the wrong way. Once she hurt that muscle,
she started to baby it. She tried to rest herself into health.
That’s what we normally tell people, isn’t it? Rest and
recover. But guess what? If you rest a muscle too long, it
gets weaker and weaker, and now she’s taking physical
therapy because, according to her therapist, she’s had things
too easy! Her muscle has not had enough opposition!
That’s how muscles get stronger – with stress. And so her
therapy now involves lifting five pound weights on her leg.
Stress strengthens. Opposition builds us up. That is a
physical fact. And it is also a spiritual truth – stress
strengthens, enmity empowers, and hostility helps us to
grow.
But for us to use that truth, we have to learn several things.
First, we have to learn the true nature of hostility – what
really is going on when you face an enemy. And, second, we
have to learn how hostility spreads, how unchecked enmity
splatters all over everyone else around. And, finally, we
have to learn how to respond when we are the objects of
hostility – what to do when we are attacked. All this we can
learn best from Jesus. From this most authentic self who
ever lived – how did He respond when He was attacked? If
we can learn what hostility really is and can discover how it
spreads, we can find out from Jesus how to deal with it. And
we can be greatly strengthened. Because, again, stress
strengthens, enmity empowers, and hostility helps us grow.
Go to dark Gethsemane with me, to that dramatic scene of
the arrest of Jesus. Go with me and watch. You will discern
demonic dynamics dedicated to destruction. But, praise
God, you will also discover divine defusing of devilish
determination.
I
First, the true nature of enmity. Judas. His very name is
synonymous with betrayal. Judas Iscariot, who had walked
the lanes of Galilee with Jesus, and had watched Jesus heal.
Judas, who had sat at the Master’s feet and had listened to
words about loving enemies. Judas, for whatever reasons, is
now bent on destruction. He has one and only one purpose
in his heart this night in Gethsemane, and that is to destroy
Jesus. He will lead the Temple guards to Jesus’ place of
prayer, and he will identify the victim so that there will be no
mistake. Judas on this night has become an example of
focused hatred: determined, implacable, set. Hostility is
opposition that goes beyond mere disagreement. Hostility,
enmity, means the desire to destroy.
Let us make no mistake. As much as we might not like to
admit it, sometimes personal enmity gets so deeply
entrenched that it is focused on only one thing, and that is
the destruction of another person. Sometimes hostility
becomes unreasoning and reckless, even self-destructive.
Remember what happened with Judas shortly after the
betrayal of Jesus? Judas destroyed himself. He took his
own life. When we get totally focused on destroying
someone, that focus, that energy, will turn in on us and will
eventually destroy us. Beware if you find yourself obsessing
on punishing somebody. You are headed in a direction that
will only be self-destructive.
Now I am confident I am not speaking to people who have
murder on their hearts. That would be the last thing I would
expect from anyone in this congregation. And yet I am also
confident that some of us could easily turn into dedicated
enemies. We are going to do someone in if we can. Maybe
we intend to remove someone from his job. Or we are going
to smear someone’s character. Or we are going to tarnish
someone’s reputation. We are going to beat someone down.
Maybe it’s as simple as we have decided we are going to win
a certain argument. We are going to have our own way in
some decision. We are going to defeat somebody, and, like
Judas, we are going to do it in the sweetest way. Kiss, hug,
and smile, saccharine sweetness, but we are going to win! I
learned a long time ago that when some folks smile sweetly
at you and say, “Well, bless your heart”, they really mean,
“Curse your bones”! Look out for the sickly sweet ones!
I know of churches where that is happening. I know of
homes where that is going on. I know of interpersonal
relationships where that is about to occur. Judas wants to
win at all costs, even if it means damaging somebody deeply.
Obsessed, compulsive, totally focused on hostility. If you’ve
felt anything like that in your own heart, be warned! Be alert!
For it is nothing but Satan himself at work when you have
determined to become somebody’s enemy.
Enmity comes from the obsessive heart. Hostility comes
from the person who, in the thralls of the tempter, loses all
compassion, abandons the human touch. Hostility is
dangerous. It is more dangerous to the hater than it is to the
hated. It is more destructive to the planner of things hurtful
than it is to the victim. Where does enmity come from? It
comes from an obsessive, calculating, self-focused self-
absorbed heart. It comes from Satan.
II
Now what happens when we begin to ventilate hostility?
What happens when we let our anger take hold? It spreads.
It spreads like wildfire, without rhyme or reason. One person
expresses hatred, and suddenly, without warning, enmity
breaks out somewhere else. Judas kisses Jesus, and
someone – one of the Gospels says it was Peter – someone
draws a sword and lashes out at a common soldier. Why?
Why would one of Jesus’ friends strike a soldier, who had
done nothing? Because hostility breeds hostility. Because
anger generates more anger. Because when we find
ourselves caught up in an atmosphere that is out of control,
we too, even the best-intentioned of us, get caught up in it,
and become destructive.
Are you old enough to remember Richard Nixon’s enemies
list? The President of the United States, an obsessively
hostile person, expanded his list of people he wanted
desperately to damage and destroy. And so Nixon’s aides
found in that permission and encouragement to be
destructive too. An unworthy heart, you see, is an infectious
thing. It draws into its orbit people who would never
otherwise think of such terrible sin.
A number of years ago I watched a church self-destruct from
this very kind of thing. Two of the church’s leaders, a
gentleman who had been a respected Sunday School
teacher, and a woman who had been a dynamic choir
member, developed an obsession with one another. In this
case it was not hostility, but an illicit love affair. But the
dynamics were the same as if it had been hostility. Each left
a spouse and off they went into never-never land. Well,
within a few short weeks couple after couple in that church
either split up or engaged in affairs, or at the very least
became confused and paralyzed. I saw that church
destroyed because reckless behavior gave others
permission to be reckless and to be destructive.
Oh, brothers and sisters, beware if you are in some tension-
filled setting! Beware, lest you be drawn into the trap and
lash out at the nearest innocent bystander. Beware of that
chronically unhappy, always hostile, always conflicted
person, who is always fighting some battle with somebody.
Before you know it, if you do not understand it, it will infect
you, and you will hurt somebody. You will even hurt yourself.
III
But now how does Jesus respond? What can we learn from
this most authentic self how to deal with the obsessively
hostile personality? What does Jesus do with the Judas
kiss? Simply put: Jesus got real with His enemies. Jesus
got very real with His enemies. Jesus first named the
absurdity of the situation, but then Jesus placed Himself
entirely in God’s hands. Jesus got real with His enemies: He
interpreted what He saw, but He did not defend Himself. He
put Himself instead in the hands of God. Jesus knew that
you do not defuse demonic determination by defending
yourself. That will only inflame your enemy more. You just
witness to how over-the-top the whole thing has become,
and then you put yourself in God’s hands. Jesus says:
“Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as though I
were a bandit? Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching,
and you did not arrest me. But let the scriptures be fulfilled.”
Jesus named the madness of the situation. “Guys, here I
was in the temple, day after day, and you could have moved
against me then. But you didn’t say a mumblin’ word. You
didn’t raise any issues. You just let your feelings fester. You
let your hate get larger and larger, and then you came after
me.” Jesus pricked the balloon of this great big dramatic
battle that had been joined in Gethsemane – “You brought
out swords and clubs to arrest one unarmed Galilean
teacher?” Sort of like attacking an Iraqi camel caravan with
a million-dollar Cruise missile! This is absurd, out of
proportion. So often we feel that those who oppose us are
ridiculously over-the-top. It’s not fair. We are going to
defend ourselves, aren’t we?
But Jesus rested His case with God. “Let the scriptures be
fulfilled.” He would not fight, He would not argue, He would
not degenerate into defensiveness. He would let God take
care of it all. He would let go and let God’s justice rule. He
would stand back and let God’s will be done. He would
believe in the purposes of God. He would believe that
ultimately God’s way will win. He would trust God. That’s
the core of it. He would trust God to deal with His enemies.
The sooner we learn that we do not have to win every battle,
nor do we have to be applauded all the time, the sooner we
will find happiness even in the midst of conflict. It can be
done only by trusting the mercy and the justice of God.
Brothers and sisters, here is why Jesus is our redeemer.
This is why He is worthy to be our savior. He shows us what
trust in God is. He teaches us the power of restraint. He
demonstrates that stress strengthens, enmity empowers, and
hostility helps us grow. He is worthy to be praised!
For He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his
mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that
before it shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
Oh, I don’t know that I am ready to hear this. I want to
defend myself. I want to make speeches and write letters
and shower folks with email. I want to be vindicated. I
haven’t learned from my Lord how to get real with my
enemies. But I’m so glad He stands there, in Gethsemane’s
garden of aggression, and gives me an example. I’m so glad
He shows me how to get real with my enemies. For then it
helps me to understand why:
.. He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our
iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and
by his bruises we are healed.
He is worthy to be praised! He got real with His enemies.
Thursday some of us cleaned the trash out of one of the
church’s houses. More than twenty bags of it. No, we didn’t
put it there. By rights it was not our job to clean it out. But
we removed it because that house belongs to God and it
must be cleaned if it is going to be used for the Kingdom. So
we hauled out the trash.
My life is like that, and so is yours. Full of trash, replete with
garbage, stacked high with the useless castoffs of a wasteful
life. We’ve spent too much time and too much energy
cluttering ourselves up with hopeless hostility and
eviscerating enmity. But I know a great Savior who didn’t
have to pick up my trash, who didn’t deserve to deal with my
debris. But He did anyway. Without complaint He suffered
on the Cross for me. Dying for sins He had not committed,
suffering the worst of human hostility. There, without a word
of complaint, but trusting God completely, my Savior Jesus
got real with my enmity. And destroyed it.
