Retribution

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“It’s the hardest thing to give away

And the last thing on your mind today

It always goes to those that don’t deserve

It’s the opposite of how you feel

When the pain they caused is just too real

It takes everything you have just to say the word…

Forgiveness…

It’ll clear the bitterness away

It can even set a prisoner free

There is no end to what its power can do

So, let it go and be amazed

By what you see through eyes of grace

The prisoner that it really frees is you

Forgiveness, Forgiveness”

-Matthew West

Nelson Mandela was laid to rest this week.

I watched the first Hunger Games movie on Friday.

…Now what in the world could those two things possibly have to do with one another?

Nelson Mandela spent thirty-one years in prison. He was charged with rising up against an unjust government that oppressed its own people. For this he would miss the funerals of his mother and his own son as he was not permitted to attend them while he was imprisoned. When the South African apartheid fell and Mandela was released, he very easily could have staged a revolt against the people that oppressed him and his cause for so many years. He had the support of governments around the world; Leaders from Europe to the USA called on South Africa to release its Greatest Son from the unjust sentence he was serving in the name of justice. To ask them to assist in punishing the oppressors would have been nothing more than a favor to ask.

Instead, he forgave them. There were no battles, no more fights. As a matter of fact, and perhaps most stunningly, there was no retribution. Nelson Mandela would win a Nobel Peace Price for walking out of prison and never holding a grudge against his captors. He would instead become the President of a nation in dire need of healing from decades of racial hostility. His attitude of forgiveness would heal that nation.

Up until Friday, I knew nothing about the Hunger Games. I had never read the book, never seen the movie and only knew that there was a female protagonist and that she was an archer. I derived that much from seeing the movie’s poster.

#SpoilerAlert

After watching the film, I was mesmerized. Set in a future Earth, factions of people would rise up against an oppressive government. Their cause would fail. As retribution for their sins, the government would force the districts which rose up against it to commit one male and female between the ages of 12-18 to The Hunger Games in which they would fight to the death until only one victor remained. Such games were used as amusement for the capital city, broadcast over airwaves and holding interviews and gambling over the contestants. Such exercises would be used to remind the districts of the consequences of rivaling the government. It was a means of keeping the districts oppressed.

What stark contrast. What literal extreme of the best and worst of humanity. With one reaction, a nation is reborn out of a terrible past of war, violence, oppression and racism. In another, the perpetual bleeding that results from retribution leads to the death of hundreds of the world’s most innocent. While you would rightly say, “Oh, Gun, that story is just fiction,” is it?

How many people go about the world ruining their souls and the souls of others by refusing to give forgiveness – or worse, demanding that they pay for something that they have done? Do we not have the thousands of years’ worth of violence in the Middle East? Do we not live in a nation with the highest percentage of its population in prison? Are children not torn apart by the fractions of their divorced parents?

We are in the midst of a season where we are about to celebrate the birth of the Ultimate Forgiver. Think about that. This king born on Christmas Day would not rule the world by overthrowing the oppressive Caesar at the time. If Christ rose up against Caesar, it would have worked. Instead he would heal people, feed them, open their eyes, then die, asking God to forgive his murderers “…for they don’t know what they do.” You know what? That King won something greater than the world. He won the Next World. The only thing we have to do to join Him is to do the same thing He did. Heal. Forgive. Love. Not seeking revenge or maybe even justice against your enemy, but love him.

Nelson Mandela is a fine example of a man who did just that. In this time of year, let his example help you know in your heart what Christmas is really all about.

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!