From Forward Day by Day
Psalm 58:10 The righteous will be glad when they see the vengeance; they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.
It often feels right and just to hate wicked people. Wrongdoers do so much damage and their victims suffer so much that it feels like if we really care about the victims, we must hate those who hurt them. Forgiveness can feel shallow, the option of the sanctimonious and uninvolved onlooker.
In this way, sin puts a double burden on the community: the victims suffer harm by the wrongdoer, and then they (and the rest of us) must overcome the temptation to hate. It’s not fair, but then, evil has never played fair.
When a man shot nine people to death in a church in Charleston, South Carolina, some of the victims’ family members looked him in the eye and forgave him, despite their rage and sorrow. “I acknowledge that I am very angry,” said the sister of one victim, but her sister taught that “we have no room for hating, so we have to forgive.” This woman’s way of loving her dead sister was to forgive her murderer. Love can inspire sorrow and it can inspire anger, but only sin can twist love into hate.
