No teaching of Jesus is more difficult or counterintuitive than his command to love one’s enemies. Loving one’s friends makes sense, but loving one’s enemies seems pointless at best and dangerous at worst. Besides, it seems like loving those who have harmed us makes light of the pain they have caused. Won’t loving them, we inevitably think, send the message that it’s okay that they hurt us?
But loving our enemies does not excuse their sin; instead, it models what Jesus did when he loved us while we were his enemies. Far from excusing our sin, his love took our sin on himself, washed it away, and refused to pay us back for it. And when Christians love their enemies in Jesus’ name and by Jesus’ power, they break the cycle of recrimination and revenge so characteristic of a fallen and violent world. Then the self-giving love of Jesus can be seen and experienced by those who otherwise would never be aware of the radical forgiveness of God.
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