I’m writing this as the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup playoffs meander awkwardly near summer (which seems so wrong). For some, at this time of year, it is the loathing of one team that causes them to cheer against a team rather than for any particular remaining club. “Any team but them!” can be the rally cry. “I couldn’t stand to see them win” is what we might feel.
“Hate” in this context is really “dislike on steroids.” It’s more like choosing one soft drink over another or a certain car brand because of a bad experience.
But, as you may know in your “knower,” there is real, grinding, gut-punching, visceral hate.
We’re talking about a depth of emotional and intellectual despising that causes us to wish the other true loss, death, or worse (there is such a thing as worse than death).
Hate, in this regard, is no game. It grips the soul. It tethers the heart. It destroys.
In a Peace & Reconciliation Network All Things Reconciled podcast, Johannes Reimer tells of being imprisoned in the Soviet Union as a young man for his Christian faith. He was abused and mocked, and hatred grew in his heart. Johannes was a young boxer and ready to go full “Mike Tyson” on the “little Muslim” who was his chief abuser. What man wouldn’t justify such anger boiling over into hatred? Isn’t truly hating in such circumstances defendable?
Hate grips the soul. It tethers the heart. It destroys.
Johannes’s testimony, however, shows that true hate, even defendable hate, is never the path to an overcoming life that wins. “I learned my lesson,” says Johannes. “Loving Jesus and loving people gives you an incredible power.”
So, how does a man access and live in this incredible power of love when we truly hate someone?
Recognize that you never control hate; it controls you.
Even if we feel justified in our hatred, the truth is that we are never in control when hate has taken root. The Apostle Paul said the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22). Anger, enmity, strife and all that devilish goulash are works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-22) and those controlled by the flesh reap death (Romans 8:5-8).
Self-control only comes by the Spirit of God. To think you control things that are the works of your flesh—like hatred—is the height of self-deception. Hate is a Master, and a brutal one at that.
Consider the upside-down ethics of Jesus.
In His day, Jesus recognized the rhetoric, so often echoed in our culture today, that hating the enemy is acceptable. The ethics of retribution and self-justifying hatred of the other based on differences and offense ruled in Jesus’ day, and they rule today.
However, Jesus called for an upside-down ethic: “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” (Matthew 5:44). To live this ethic is opened up by love and prayer. In love and prayer, we bring the one we hate before the Lord, who is the righteous Judge. In doing good instead of avenging, men turn the world on its head and trust the Lord to whom true vengeance belongs (Romans 12:19-21).
This is countercultural. It is personally counterintuitive. It is radically counter-everything and a game changer for us, and sometimes for the one we hate.
Remember, you were the enemy, and love overcame.
There is no Christian who wasn’t on the wrong side of the ledger at one point. The deep-breath truth that God’s love overcame His most holy and justifiable wrath against sin (Romans 5:10) should cause me to take a long intermission assessment of the hatred boiling in me.
We forgive others as God forgave us (Ephesians 4:32). We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). We become men who begin to embody the mercy we have received and begin down a path of liberty and liberty-making.
And, this is, as Reimer said, “an incredible power.”
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