Daily Reflections ...

After the Samaritans fail to receive Jesus in their village, the disciples ask Jesus if they can ‘command fire to come down from heaven and consume’ the Samaritans. It seems as though after experiencing rejection, the disciples respond with an instinctual defensive attack in order to preserve their own pride. St Luke’s record of Jesus’ response to the disciples is short and simple, ‘But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.’

Jesus has a reputation for not seeking revenge or getting defensive. He shows this most prominently whilst being abused, degraded and bullied before dying on the cross, receiving that verbal and physical abuse silently, offering up his suffering and death for the forgiveness of our sins.

This is a magnanimous display of what it is to love.

God invites us into this loving relationship with him, even though it is our actions and denial of him that led him to be abused, degraded, bullied, suffer and die. He never forces us to be in this relationship. Isn’t this remarkable? The God who created the world and everything in it, allows you and I to reject him, should we choose it. God does not smite us when we do, but honours our free will, because love is always free.

Lord Jesus, help me to love like you love, to reject any revenge that creeps into my own heart, and grant me the grace to love my enemies. Amen.

by Emma Kruse