Film Friday When Edmond Dantès is wrongly imprisoned for a crime he did not commit he meets a man, a count, who helps him to escape. And on escaping Edmond vows revenge on those who wronged him and stole years from his life. At one point he goes into a church and there he tells God this –
‘I’m going to do what you could not do…’ and in saying this he means he will get revenge and he will punish those who punished him.
However, I think his wording is not quite right, perhaps he should have said, ‘I’m going to do what you would not do…’ God could have punished his enemies. He has the power. But through Jesus God is offering grace and forgiveness to the world. We all long for the corruption in this world to be removed, for the evil and cruelty to be destroyed. There is so much that is wrong. But when Jesus arrived he ushered in a new age, a new time when he would draw people close to God so that they would be agents of compassion and truth, couriers of change through God’s courage and caring.
John the Baptist spoke of a time when the axe would be laid to the root of the tree of corruption, but when Jesus arrived John sent friends to question him, his cousin did not look like the fire-breathing Messiah John had spoken about. Jesus’s response (in Matthew 11 v 2-5) was to point to the way good news was coming to the poor, lives were being resurrected, and eyes and ears were being opened to the counter-cultural ways of God. Jesus was a Messiah who would not break off a bruised reed, or snuff out a flickering match. He hadn’t come to curse the darkness, but to light billions of candles in the lives of those who would begin to follow him and discover his ways of strength, comfort, forgiveness and hope. Just as Jesus described in Matthew 11 v 28-30. ‘Come to me if life has broken you down, learn from me, for my ways are different, my ways are good and helpful and you will find rest and refreshment.’ (my paraphrase)
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