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“Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Matthew 5:48, LSB

“Revenge is a dish best-served cold,” this phrase from the eighteenth century has been popularized so much that many may think it is a biblical proverb. As people, we like revenge. However, we love to nuance this idea and call it justice. Most people can quote the ancient law, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” This is in the Bible. Yet, Jesus speaks these words after telling the disciples to love their enemies. Justice is wonderful, but to invoke it we must be perfect like our Lord God in all ways. Why? If we want justice for another, do we wish the same justice for the wrongs we do to others to come to us? We may like to delineate wrongs on a spectrum, and we love to justify our wrongs while highlighting the wrongs that another has done against us. Pure justice, though we may think we want it, when addressed with what it may mean for us would cause all of us to cry for mercy. Mercy is what we receive from our Lord and mercy is what our Lord desires us to reflect. Our forgiveness in Christ Jesus is not because of His justice but because of His mercy and grace poured out in abundance. Our anger is a sign of the unjust nature of our sin. Jesus took all the injustice of the beating, the scourging, and the Cross for our sake and this is the Gospel we are to walk within. It is easy to love someone you call a friend. It is easier to forgive someone you care about. We are called to forgive that neighbor who has said and done things against us that were unjust, love the one who is nasty to us, and pray for those who have done great evil. We do this because our Lord has done this for us and in His love and forgiveness, we find our peace.

Let us pray. I thank you, my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ, your dear Son, that you have kept me this night from all harm and danger, and I ask you to protect me this day also from sin and every evil, that in all I do today, I may please you. For into your hands, I commend myself, my body and soul, and all that is mine. Let your holy angel watch over me, that the wicked foe have no power over me. Amen.