5

Rising above Revenge

I had been home from the Philippines just three months when September 11 rolled around—the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. A citywide observance was slated that evening in the football stadium of Wichita State University. The organizers asked me to speak for about ten minutes.

What should I say on such a solemn occasion?

I chose to tell about the slow, sultry days we spent at a camp along a beautiful, rushing river, where the Abu Sayyaf told us we were relatively safe. (The camp was owned by the MILF, another group of Islamic separatist rebels.) We had plenty to eat at that point, but there was nothing to fill the days. We were bored out of our minds.

To occupy the time, we hostages told one another stories. I opted for hostage stories out of the Bible, describing people in straits similar to our own.

One was about the little girl in 2 Kings 5 who was snatched away from her home in Israel to scrub floors and peel potatoes (or whatever) in the home of Aram’s commanding four-star general, Naaman. “The Bible doesn’t tell either her name or her age,” I said as I spoke to the Wichita crowd, “but just to make her a little more real for us, let’s imagine that she was ten years old. Do we have any ten-year-olds here tonight?”

Across the bleachers, little girls waved their hands enthusiastically in the warm air, as their eyes squinted into the sunset.

“Well, I’m pretty impressed with this little girl,” I continued. I pointed out that she knew what it was like to have something dreadfully unfair happen in life. She had been grabbed from her home and all that was familiar to her. Were any of her brothers or sisters taken at the same time? What about her parents? Did she have to watch them be killed as her dad fought to save them all? We don’t know.

Then came the days, if not weeks, of walking. Every step took her farther from home. She probably had to sleep on the ground. She was no doubt upset and exhausted, crying quietly over the loss of her freedom and her family. What would become of her in this strange land?

She wound up being forced into slavery at Naaman’s house. Day after day, she had to work, perhaps from dawn to dark. She had no control over her life anymore.

She learned that her master was a big shot in the Aramean military; it was his troops who had raided her town and swept her away. But she also found out that her master had a physical problem, a chronic skin disease for which there was no cure.

Did she say to herself, Serves him right for his cruelty to me and my people? Did she say to herself, I hope he dies an agonizing death over this?

No, with a heart of childlike goodwill, she commented to Naaman’s wife, “I wish my master would go to see the prophet in Samaria. He would heal him of his leprosy” (2 Kings 5:3).

What’s going on here? It is natural to want payback when something bad happens to you. And you can always find someone to sympathize with you. But this little girl shows us a different approach. She chose to forgive rather than seek revenge. Then she even offered her help.

We don’t have to like the hurtful actions of others. In fact, we should put a stop to them if we can. But if that proves impractical, we can still forgive. God may even use us to bring about great change in the offender’s life.

As you probably know, Naaman and his wife listened to the hostage girl’s advice. He ended up making a trip to see the prophet she had mentioned. In the end (after some initial confusion), the general was miraculously healed. He returned to Aram with gratitude and a softened spirit.

We don’t know if he rewarded the little girl for her kindness. It would be nice to read that he set her free and returned her to her village in Israel. The Bible doesn’t say that. It says only that good things happened because a victim declined to seek revenge.

*   *

I went on to tell the Wichita crowd about our experience with “57,” the captor with the bad attitude whom I mentioned in my first book. About twenty-three years old, he was average height for a Filipino—maybe five foot six, and not especially muscular. Yet he had been tapped to carry a heavy rocket launcher called an M57— thus, his nickname.

The young man was always sullen, complaining, and argumentative. His English was not strong, so I wasn’t able to learn much about him, why he had joined the Abu Sayyaf, or what his personal dreams were. All I knew, as I told Martin once, was that the nickname fit because the kid had been in a bad mood for fifty-seven days straight! Martin chuckled.

With a little detective work though, Martin eventually found out that “57” suffered from serious headaches. His surliness was not so much caused by the load he carried as by his pounding head. Martin began to offer him pain relievers from our little stash.

The fellow’s attitude toward Martin changed instantly. From that moment on, my husband was his friend.

Not long afterward, the Abu Sayyaf sent “57” out on a raiding expedition, and he was gone for several weeks. When he returned, he promptly gave Martin the full greeting used in this part of the world, a kiss on each cheek. A big smile lit up his face.

We eventually lost track of “57” at a rubber plantation when word came that the government’s marines were on our trail. This young captor was chosen to go scouting and find out if this was true. The Abu Sayyaf gave him a nice haircut so he would look like a “city boy” on his expedition. We never saw him again. But to this day, I have a warm spot in my heart for that young man because of what Martin did for him.

Jesus said, “If you are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. . . . If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other cheek. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also” (Luke 6:27, 29).

Jesus wasn’t just speaking hyperbole. He really meant it. And he put it into practice himself, on the night of his arrest in the garden of Gethsemane. He was about to lose all control over his life and be taken into custody. I love the way Phillip Keller describes this moment in his book Rabboni:

At this point Peter whipped out his sword. He never was a coward. The big strong-muscled fisherman was quick to take advantage of the situation. The sharp steel flashed in the flickering light of the flares. There was an anguished scream. Malchus, a servant of the high priest, held his hand to his head. Hot blood gushed from the severed stump of his ear. An inch or two farther over and his skull would have been split in half by Peter’s angry stroke.

Jesus was quick to take it all in.

“Put away your sword, Peter!” His command was short and sharp. “He who lives by violence dies by violence.” This was not the place or time for a show of strength. . . .

The Master, meanwhile, reached out quietly and touched Malchus. The wound was healed: the ear restored: the blood stanched.

Here is the paragraph that really gets my attention.

It was the last miracle of healing Jesus was to perform. And He did it to the man who came out to help lynch Him in the dark.[3]

You and I have a choice. We can do things our way or God’s way. In the case of Naaman, God received glory because a little girl did the right thing. In the garden, a personal tragedy was reversed because the Son of God did the right thing.

Revenge has a way of making ugly situations uglier. The stakes are raised, the emotions are heightened, and before you know it, the pain has been multiplied in all directions. How many people have filed a lawsuit or taken some other vindictive step, only to look back five years later and wistfully say, “I wish I hadn’t done that. It just made matters worse.”

How much better to do something truly radical . . . to step outside the pattern of tit-for-tat, to return good for evil, and to watch the surprise on people’s faces. It frees them up to think in new and healthier ways. It keeps our own spirit clean. And it honors our heavenly Father, who taught us to love the most unlovely of all.