COLUMN: A good day to meditate on evil and righteousness

Today is Easter, a remembrance of the resurrection of Jesus, and a reminder of God’s boundless love for mankind, but it is also just four days after the brutal attack in Brussels that took place on March 23 — a reminder of man’s destructive nature.

That contrast should give us pause this Sunday morning to reflect on how we respond to evil — and how we cannot hope to be called good if we allow evil to prosper.

While all Christians are appropriately grateful for God’s offer of redemption to sinners, there is no better day than Easter to remember that God’s love is unearned and undeserved. Christians used to incorporate the sinful nature of the human condition into their equation of worship. As a species, after all, mankind has been nothing but trouble for God the Creator, starting with Adam and coming to fruition with the persecution of Jesus in Jerusalem during Holy Week.

Oh yes, we talk a good game, and for a while we can walk the narrow path to life, but then — like David, like Moses, like Samson — even the best of us stumble and find ourselves on the broad road to perdition. We definitely need a savior.

But it is worth remembering that you cannot get to Easter without Good Friday, and Good Friday is the ultimate proof that mankind’s ability to discern what is right in front of its eyes is limited at best. If mankind had some innate ability to perceive the truth, to recognize righteousness and to choose it unerringly, we would have had no need of Easter, nor would it exist, for we would not have put Jesus to death in the first place.

If there is any meaning to the Bible, and to the stories of God’s relationship to man, it is this — that every day we are given a choice whether to follow God’s laws or man’s, whether to try to kill God or to serve him. Jesus did not obviate that choice, but rather made it crystal clear.

“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:34-38)

The quick takeaway from this and many other sayings of Jesus is that choosing sides is part of what it means to be a Christian. Following Christ by definition means you are rejecting certain other philosophies and certain other people. Choosing righteousness means you must recognize the power of evil and work to expose it, to confront it and to overturn it — just as Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the temple.

It is thus frustrating that so much of modern Christianity has adopted the belief that Christ’s message of love somehow translates into acceptance of evil. “Who am I to judge?” people ask. “Let’s just live and let live.”

That is a perversion of Jesus’ commandment, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” because it assumes that the answer to everything is forgiveness or acceptance of evil as the status quo. In fact, Jesus ties this statement directly to “the Law and the Prophets,” and he immediately warns his followers to “beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing.”

Jesus is not encouraging us to turn a blind eye to evil, but rather to recognize it for what it is, and to oppose it. When he told us to “resist not evil,” he was not telling us to surrender to it; otherwise his whole life would have been meaningless since his entire existence was dedicated to conquering evil. He didn’t resist evil, but he overcame it. He also wanted us to do so.

“A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” (Matthew 7: 18-20)

In the wake of Brussels, there should be no Christian who harbors any sympathy for the evil-doers of the Islamic State. We should do unto them what we would have them do unto us were we brutal murderers. Christ trusted us to do so. If we are honest about our Christian principles — and truly believe in righteousness — then we must acknowledge that if any one of us detonated a bomb in a crowd of innocent people, we would fully expect to be hunted down and killed. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” means we must live with the courage of our convictions. If you believe in righteousness, that means righteousness must prevail, not acquiesce. There is no middle ground.

“Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” Let the punishment fit the crime, because if evil is allowed to go unpunished, we should not expect to enjoy the blessings of a happy Easter.