Hate

Matt. 5:43-46

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax-gatherers do the same?

Hate is bondage.
God calls us to break the cycle of violence and the prison that hatred can become. Righteous indignation is not hate. Righteous indignation is grief over sin. And God has that. But He does not hate. He is merciful to the unjust and persecutor. He might stop them from their acts, but He does so for their sake. And He is as tender to them as He is to you or me — because He wants everyone to be saved. He knows our frame. He knows we are dust.

One of the ironic drawbacks of hate is its intimacy. When you hate, you drive yourself closer to your enemy; you find yourself imitating him. Your hatred feeds off his hatred. In fact, history shows us the hatred of one enemy will likely outgrow the hatred of its nemesis. Nobody really wins when hate’s driving the motivation. Hate becomes a cancer that eats at us and saps our strength, our sanity, even our ability to rest. You don’t know what real stress is in your life until you’ve lived in hate.

God knows we are drawn to hate. He understands it. (Why are we so tempted to think God is surprised by sin or the worst atrocities of human history?) But look at the Psalms. The Davidic Psalms have many examples of angry emotion, but it’s a rage that David took to the Lord. And He found peace there. When we take our rage to God and ask Him to release us from it, then take it a step further (which we don’t see often in Psalms but which we see in the New Testament) we release ourselves from a dark intimacy with evil.

Some have accused the American news media of being purveyors of hate. In cases where that has been true, its worst forms have been those in which journalists and media professionals have allowed their passions to prevail over a reasoned pursuit of Truth. It is possible to cover evil, and even clear acts of hate, without glorifying it or becoming infected by it. May we, and our students and alumni, be those who bring healing in these days when hatred seems at fever pitch all around us.