By Doug Redford
People can be very clever and creative at planning how to get even with someone for an injustice or grievance, no matter what the unacceptable action may be. One man, a grandfather, bought his grandson a hobby horse for his birthday. It came unassembled, with about 150 pieces. The directions assured the buyer that it would take two to three hours to assemble. Two or three days later, the exasperated grandfather finally finished the task.
When the grandfather was ready to send in his payment for the hobby horse, he prepared the check, wrote it out and signed it—then he cut it up into 150 pieces and sent it to the company.
Humanity has been honing the practice of payback for a long time. It takes only three chapters to go from Genesis 1, where man is created in the image of his Creator, to Genesis 4, where Cain fears revenge because of his murder of Abel (vv. 13-15). Later in the same chapter, Lamech boasts to his two wives, “Wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times” (vv. 23, 24).
But long before Genesis 1, long before the creation of the heavens and the earth (1 Peter 1:20), our creative Creator had in mind a plan, not to take revenge on humanity for its sin but to rescue humanity from sin’s grip and heal the gap that sin had created. That plan was also quite creative: to take an object of horror, disgust, and shame (the cross) and make it the source of salvation by placing his Son there to receive the punishment that should have been ours.
Paul gives the setting during which Jesus instituted Communion with his disciples. It happened “on the night he was betrayed” (1 Corinthians 11:23). Jesus knew what lay ahead for him, and he knew his betrayer was at the table with him. But Jesus was not thinking payback. He was committed to paying the price of humanity’s salvation, giving his body and shedding his blood (vv. 24, 25).
Many are familiar with the words of John 3:16. But the words of John 3:17 are just as powerful: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” The emblems of Communion remind us that Jesus came, not on a mission of revenge but of rescue.
Doug Redford has served in the preaching ministry, as an editor of adult Sunday school curriculum, and as a Bible college professor. Now retired, he continues to write and speak as opportunities come.
We are so quick to seek out a way to get revenge against someone who hurt us in some way. I am so thankful that the LORD found me worthy of be saved. He sent his son for all mankind’s sin. Thank you, Lord,