Oops I did it again.  I followed one of those links.  You know the ones that begin, “You’ll never believe….” I hate them.  They lack credibility. They don’t make me LOL or cry like they promise.  But then, I am a bit more analytical and skeptical – less easily entertained than the average bear.

In this case, I considered the source and took the bait. Shared between a good, mainline Christian couple, with many years of marriage to their credit; I thought it would be a comedy. What followed was a video reenactment of a young man getting revenge through publicly humiliating an unfaithful bride. Right on the wedding day. Interrupting the ceremony. Though it made some people laugh, to me it seemed more like a Shakespearean tragedy.  It made me squirm. Was the groom hurt?  Yes. Irreparably. A cuckold through the actions of his best man. Did complete and pre-meditated revenge make him feel better?

Does revenge make any of us feel better? Does it solve or salve our hurt to humiliate someone else? With all my heart and brain, I believe there are consequences when we are untrustworthy. Justice demands consequences.  Punishment may be necessary. But does justice demand public humiliation? Overkill? Unnecessary roughness? Is gouging and turning of the dagger somehow more healing than precise extrication with a surgical knife? Mercy and righteousness say, “no.” Truth must be spoken. Yes. Relationships may need to be severed. Yes.  But revenge has never been the domain of the righteous.

Judeo-Christian ethic teaches that vengeance belongs to God and God alone.  Forget your WWJD? zeal and the resulting 70 X 7.  Look a few years B.C. and ask yourself, “What would Joseph do?”

Joseph, you may remember, was engaged to Mary.  Mary was pregnant and Joseph knew he had not slept with her. “Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.”

A pox on your “Joseph had an angel,” excuses.  I refute them. Joseph had already decided to keep the law.  He had determined to keep it quietly, rather than vocally bludgeoning Mary and all her kin over the head with it. Consequences would be leveled, but without the catalyst of revenge.

Whatever happened to civility and good manners?  Why does hurt trump love? When did humility become humiliate?  What happened to doing good to your enemies? Or the golden rule?  And when did revenge become the triumphal war banner of the righteous?