What is justice?
The Old Testament of the Bible calls for self control, ‘An eye for an eye’. If someone takes your eye, you take theirs, and that’s the end of it. No more. No escalation. It is finished. One shot for one shot. One missile for one missile. That is all.
The New Testament takes the challenge further: ‘Turn the other cheek.’ ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ ‘Forgive others as God has forgiven you.’ Take the hit, and don’t react. Take the hit, and stop it passing on. Don’t become the same as your enemy: be better than your enemy. Overcome evil with good.
In Christ there is an even greater challenge again: ‘It is finished.’ Jesus offers to carry the crimes of the world that we might be changed back into innocence: that humanity might live. ‘Take up your cross and follow me!’ Be willing to die, not only to save your friends and family: be willing to die, even to save your enemy.
Don’t become the same as evil: overcome evil with good.
In a nuclear age, how should we respond to a nuclear threat?
If a bully is shaking their fist, how should we respond?
Do we shake our fist back again with the same strength? (Old Testament.)
Do we shake a much bigger fist back again? (?Justice)
Do will build up a huge arsenal of self defence, and claim the moral higher ground?
In an age when a nuclear holocaust could kill us all, we can’t indulge in the luxury of believing our choices are only about ourselves.
Our choices are not only about ourselves: our choices, where they impact a multitude of others, must also be about all the others.
‘Love your neighbours as yourselves.’
‘Love your enemy.’
If humanity is to survive, we must move beyond our own self-defence into a desire to preserve peace for all. And to do this, we must learn that our enemies are human too.
Our responses to our enemies matter too.
We must not exercise self-defence at any cost: to do so in a nuclear age is suicide.
‘Love your neighbour.’
‘Love your enemy.’
‘Turn the other cheek.’
In the day of evil, stand.
Don’t be assimilated into being the same:
transcend the evil, transcend the violence, with a greater good.
The Light must be willing to pay the price to outshine the Darkness.
Love must transcend corruption.