Thoughts for the Day

For it is to your credit if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, where is the credit in that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.

‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’

When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

Looking for inspiration to write another Thought on the subject of suffering and persecution, I glanced down at a book mark on my desk with the picture of a poppy on it, and read these words:

• "Soon we will die and all memory of those we mourn will have left the earth, and we ourselves will be forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and the land of the dead, and the bridge is love. The only survival, the only meaning." (Thornton Wilder, 20th century writer and Pulitzer prize winner.)

Peter's First Epistle is addressed to God's 'chosen' who are spread across the areas of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, around the Black Sea and a lot of it in modern-day Turkey. The verse immediately before today's passage makes it clear that it is addressed to slaves. But the meaning is the same for us today: just as our Lord Jesus suffered for us out of love for us so should we offer love to all who hate us; added to which we should offer forgiveness to those who abuse us. The only eternal quality or sign that exists, is Love - ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3.16).

Whatever our circumstances whether someone offers us a small slight or seriously offers us violence, we are to respond with love!

Heavenly Father
as Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
returned love and forgiveness to His enemies
so may we respond to all people with love
no matter their treatment of us,
for love is the universal bridge
between Heaven and earth,
and is worthy of acceptance.
Amen.