| WHAT ABOUT CURSES? |
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| 25:31-46). But Old Testament Israelites had only vague ideas about life after death. For them, justice had to be done in this life, before their eyes. They asked for it in the cursing psalms. Mercy for Your Enemies What about mercy? Isn't our duty to forgive our enemies, and love them? How do the cursing psalms fit with that? Three things must be said. First, while no mercy shows through in the "cursing" psalms, that doesn't mean the people who wrote them were wholly unmerciful. David, credited with some of the strongest cursing psalms, showed extraordinary mercy toward Saul, his vengeful enemy. The cursing psalms are unbridled cries of agony. They honestly reflect the way people felt. Their authors' lives sometimes balanced this cry with compassion. Second, the psalmists wrote before Jesus offered forgiveness to all by dying, as God's Son, in people's place. Even today many people find it difficult to accept Jesus' teaching on forgiving enemies, for it means forgiving rapists, child molesters, mass murderers. We can only forgive them because Jesus paid the price for their crimes. The psalmists lived before that payment. Third, the cursing psalms prepared the way for forgiveness. You can only be genuinely merciful if you start with a full appreciation of guilt. The judge who carelessly lets a criminal off on a technicality is not showing mercy. Maybe he or she just lacks sympathy for the crime's victim. True mercy comes when victims themselves turn and forgive the poeple who hurt them, releasing them to liberty. Jesus the Victim The cursing psalms express the hideousness of violence and injustice. Unless you feel the depth of this, you |