02: Revenge & Resurrection

02

Revenge & Resurrection

Nathan Hale | Phoenix, Arizona

As a child of the 90s, I bore witness to a strange and diverse slate of superhero films. Most movies lacked the polish of today’s Marvel franchise, but they also resisted a paint-by-the-numbers approach that has caused the genre to feel a bit stagnant today.

One superhero film that caught my attention in particular was 1994's noir superhero/ghost story The Crow.

In the film, a rising rock star, Eric Draven, and his fiancée are callously murdered before they can marry. However, a dark spirit in the form of a crow brings Eric back from the grave to take revenge on his killers. This return from death ostensibly accomplishes “justice” so that his spirit can “move on” in peace. Over the years, the film has become something of a cult classic.

But The Crow isn’t the only revenge movie out there. It’s simply one of a whole genre, continued today in blockbuster hits like the ever-perpetuating John Wick series. The fact is, people love the idea of someone dying (or appearing to die, or dying metaphorically) and coming back to life to give the people that did the evil deed their just deserts. There is something very appealing at the instinctual level of our human nature that seems satisfied with this account of justice. Yet from a Christian perspective, the revenge story can never rightly fit with a Christ-shaped desire for justice.

This is because the justice that Jesus accomplishes does not look like people getting what they deserve. This alternative justice is based on God’s faithfulness to his promises. It is not realized in the execution of punishment but the making of things as they should be.

How can revenge bring about healing or restoration?

How can revenge, especially expressed in taking one life for another, ever undo an evil deed? How can revenge bring about healing or restoration? It simply cannot. At best, revenge may halt an immediate threat. At worst, the avenger becomes what they themselves despise by responding to wickedness in kind. Either way, revenge only accelerates what will eventually happen to every person in the end.

Death is the inevitable curse that we consciously deny yet cannot resist, we flee from it yet cannot escape it. The Bible tells us that death entered the world because of sin—the selfish and self-destructive attitudes, actions, and affections of our hearts—and has justly caused all of creation to fall into decay. If we trust this wisdom, we must acknowledge that it’s not only the heinous offenders, the murderers, and the rapists that deserve to die, but every single person. This is because “…the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23, ESV) and “… all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23, ESV).

His never-ending life ends the reign of death not only for those that seem to deserve it more than others, but for all who are found in Christ.

Yet even death for those who deserve it, falls short of what God desires. The Creator is “…not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9, ESV). As a result, God exercises patience and “…the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God… in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:19–21, ESV) Thank God that his project of setting the world right has been publicly inaugurated in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. His never-ending life ends the reign of death not only for those that seem to deserve it more than others, but for all who are found in Christ.

Unlike the myths we construct, Christ did not come back to breathe out threats and vengeance, but to breathe his Spirit of life into disciples who would share it with the world.

Like Eric Draven in The Crow, Jesus suffered a death he did not deserve, and because of his love, was raised back to life. But Eric came back as something less than human, a living corpse animated by the spirit of vengeance, taking life in order to return to death. In contrast, Jesus was raised up by the Spirit of God to give life and never die again. Unlike the myths we construct, Christ did not come back to breathe out threats and vengeance, but to breathe his Spirit of life into disciples who would share it with the world. “Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”” (John 20:21–23, ESV).

Jesus did not come back to kill his killers, but to offer forgiveness, healing, and transformation. He was not raised from the dead to retire to an afterlife of rest but to rule at the right hand of God, ushering in a new era of peace for all people.

Jesus was the only truly innocent person to ever walk the earth, the only person we could imagine who would be perfectly justified in taking revenge. Yet he rejected revenge in favor of forgiveness and mercy. The witness of his life takes revenge off the table. In the resurrection of Jesus, a lethal blow was dealt to the myth of redemptive violence.

Since that time, thousands of martyrs have imitated the same pattern and brought about real and lasting change to the world around them. Their sacrifice and its inevitable fruit is only understandable in light of their trust in Christ and their certain hope to share in his Resurrection life.

Because Jesus lives we too can know and live now in the truth that justice is mercy; righteousness is forgiveness; love for our mortal enemies is the life that grants immortality. In the end, revenge is overcome by resurrection.