Christmas Vengeance

These days I have been thinking a lot about vengeance.  We all, it seems, have something(s?) that has happened to us for which we would like recompense.  We want to see those who have seriously wronged us to be punished in a way befitting the crime committed against ourselves.  Their body, mind, preferably eternal soul, ought to suffer at least as much as we perceive we have at their hand.

I have been allowing my mind to drift ever so slowly to the other side of this argument.  And peaking around that corner I found someone who was hoping and praying for the same thing.  Vengeance.

Christians like to satiate the murderous desire for revenge by clinging to the verse in the bible that says "'vengeance is mine, I will repay' saith the Lord."  Imagining a wrathful God pouring famine, pestilence and eternal damnation upon our offenders' heads.

But what if what is meant by this is that He is both the avenger (I will repay) and the recipient of that revenge (vengeance is MINE).  What if what Christ did on Calvary was to receive all the vengeance for all the wrongs done as the Father trampled Him in His wrath.  What if God only metes out his vengeance to also receive it.  What if this is the image of vengeance and redemption: that they are one, two sides of the same coin, two characteristics of the same person-the ultimate, infinite image of grace.

Isaiah 63 says:

Who is this coming from Edom, 
    from Bozrah, with his garments stained crimson? 
Who is this, robed in splendor,
    striding forward in the greatness of his strength?

“It is I, proclaiming victory,
    mighty to save.”

² Why are your garments red,
    like those of one treading the winepress?

³ “I have trodden the winepress alone;
    from the nations no one was with me.
I trampled them in my anger
    and trod them down in my wrath; 
their blood spattered my garments, 
    and I stained all my clothing.
⁴ It was for me the day of vengeance; 
    the year for me to redeem had come.
⁵ I looked, but there was no one to help,
    I was appalled that no one gave support;
so my own arm achieved salvation for me,
    and my own wrath sustained me. 
⁶ I trampled the nations in my anger;
    in my wrath I made them drunk 
    and poured their blood on the ground.”'

 he who has ears to hear...What if receiving the vengeance of the Father is exactly what the Son was born in this world to do.  So that there is no vengeance to be taken on murderers, mass or singular. So that there is no recompense for the rapist and the abuser.

What if ALL is Grace?  What if God is truly Love... For all?  Can you bear it?  Because, I am sure that is the God I have come to know; Jesus paid it all.  ALL.  all. unfathomable.  

If only could...

Make a deal with God, and get him to swap our places...

I think of this as the beginning of the dark ages-somewhere in the not quite middle of November.

My brother Ben, youngest of 9 born to my parents, ostensible bearer of a 3rd chromosome 21, was born on this day.  November 18th, 1983.  He'd be 29, if one can imagine that being a possibility. He died, suddenly, dramatically, insanely, just over a month after his 6th birthday.

I love writing.  I think I first started loving writing (and  loving writing for the reason of having a place to put my constant inner monologue, in particular) in response to his death.  I kept notes in a three subject spiral binder with a red cover about him and my feelings in relation to his death in the immediate years following.  So it seems only write, that i would right (yes i meant to misappropriate the spelling of the words that way) about all that on this day...23 years (almost) later.

There are moments that define your life so clearly, that no amount of time or distance or degradation of memory will ever put any distance between yourself and those moments.  The moment I knew my brother was dead, is just such a moment.

He was sweet, and adorable.  He had white blonde hair, and a beer belly and crazy dark blue eyes.  His fingers were short and pudgy and he was about 3 years behind the learning curve.  And he was sweet without equal, could work a VCR better than my mom, was up at dawn in his swimsuit/inner-tube and in the pool regardless of the ambient temperature.  He had you wrapped around his sweet, fat, wrinkle-less finger before you knew what was happening.

Each of my sons has reminded me of him, in their own way, at different times.  The subtle ways that nature can win out over nurture (or lack thereof, because certainly my ability to nurture is a shade compared to my mother-and her skills in this area may have been called into question by certain observers).

Happy Birthday to one who would be 29 this year, but is forever young in a way no mind of man can imagine.