The LORD is an Avenger (Black Holes Included)

Suggested Reading: 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12

One of the places where the 2009 Star Trek movie diverged from the original Star Trek Television series was in the role of the planet Vulcan. In the 2009 movie, the villain, Nero, traveled back in time and destroyed Vulcan, murdering billions of people in the process. At the climax of the movie, Captain Kirk and his Vulcan first officer, Spock, have Nero's ship trapped at the edge of a black hole. Kirk contacts Nero and offers to render assistance but the villain is so consumed by his hate of Vulcans that he refuses. When Nero refuses his help, Kirk opens fire. When Kirk explains his offer of assistance to Spock, assuming that Spock would appreciate the non-violent gesture, Spock's understated, "Not in this circumstance, Captain," reminds the audience that Nero was an unrepentant genocidal murderer. In this particular instance, Spock did not want non-violence. Spock wanted the murder of billions of his fellow Vulcans avenged. The audience understood that, in this case, mercy was far too good for the genocidal Nero. The blood of all his victims cried out for justice.

We often think of God being represented through Jesus as a God of undying love and inexhaustible mercy, and we are right in that regard. But God cares as much about the victims as God cares about being merciful to the victimizer.  1 Thessalonians 4:6 reads, "This means one must not transgress against and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger of all these offenses, as we also previously told and warned you" (HCSB). 2 Thessalonians 1:6-8 tells us, "It is righteous for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you...taking vengeance with flaming fire on those who don’t know God and on those who don’t obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus" (HCSB).  We often focus on God's forgiveness for the sinner because we view ourselves as the transgressors and want mercy extended to us. But what if we are the victim like Spock? Suddenly justice sounds a lot better than mercy, right?

God is a God of both justice and mercy. Yes, God extends forgiveness to the repentant. But, caring for the victim, God extends justice to those who reject his mercy through unrepentance . God does not extend his justice because God is callous to the sinner's cries but because God is sensitive to the cries of the victim. God avenges the suffering of his people when the guilty party refuses to repent. This should comfort us because we know that God will bring us justice if those who cause us pain do not change their ways. But it should also give us pause when we refuse to acknowledge and rectify the hurt we have caused others. How will God mete out justice to us if we refuse to change our ways?

Yes, the Lord is merciful and loving, but the LORD is also an Avenger.

Abandoning Your Rights As a Klingon

Suggested Reading: Nehemiah 5:14-19

Worf was one of the most memorable characters from Star Trek: the Next Generation. A Klingon with giant ridges on his skull, Worf was from a race of warriors who prized honor above all else. But Klingons also believed in punishing children for the sins of their fathers. When Worf discovered proof that his father had been falsely branded a traitor, he brought that proof to the Klingon High Council to clear his family name. As a result, the Council offered Worf the son of the man responsible for framing his father and a chance for his family to avenge the wrong done. Worf was given the right to kill the young boy but he refused to punish a boy who had not personally committed a crime against him.  As far as Worf was concerned, he had the right to kill the boy, but killing him would not have been right.

At the end of Nehemiah chapter 5, after Nehemiah had dealt with the nobles and officials who had been exploiting the poor, Nehemiah made an official notation that almost seems like he was tooting his own horn. Nehemiah wrote, "Moreover, from the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, until his thirty-second year-- twelve years-- neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor." (Nehemiah 5;14, NIV) Nehemiah went on to say that the previous governors collected a very hefty salary from the people he governed but that he  himself refused to take it, even though it meant feeding 150 officials on a daily basis as well as the occasional visiting dignitaries out of his own pocket. Nehemiah specifically stated that he refused to demand what he was due as governor because it would have hurt the people of the land. Nehemiah could have demanded a salary and reimbursement for all of his expenses because they were his right, but he chose to make the people more important than his rights.

There are many things that we believe are our rights, things that we think people owe us. Sometimes, we have a right to an apology, to an explanation, to compensation. People may owe us credit or thanks. And often, we would be well within our rights to demand those things. But sometimes, demanding our rights simply isn't right. Sometimes, we need to put people and relationships above our rights. That person who hurt you may owe you an apology, but is the apology worth more than the friendship? Jesus set aside his rights as creator of the universe and ruler of eternity in order to save the very people who had taken his gifts of life and freedom and thrown them back in his face.

Jesus refused to cling to the rights he was due as God because we were more important to him. Shouldn't we be willing to forgo some of our rights because people are more important to us?