A girl at school says she hates Sarah. She also does mean and disrespectful things in Sarah’s face. Sarah usually tells her to stop and walks away if she can. However, their desks are right next to each other. On Monday, it got bad enough that Sarah just picked up her stuff and moved to an empty desk in another part of the room.
Jesus was hated far worse. In fact, they plotted to kill him not long into His public ministry! He stayed away from them, so as not to arouse more of their anger too soon.
John
7:1-7 1After this, Jesus went around in Galilee, purposely
staying away from Judea because the Jews there were waiting to take his life. 2But
when the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near, 3Jesus' brothers said
to him, "You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples
may see the miracles you do. 4No one who wants to become a public
figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the
world." 5For even his own brothers did not believe in
him. 6Therefore Jesus told them, "The right time for me has not yet come; for you any
time is right. 7The world cannot hate you, but it hates me
because I testify that what it does is evil.
When
people are mean and evil, they often don’t like kind and godly people around
them. It highlights their own sin and shortcomings. We talked about that with
Sarah. In fact, we had all studied this passage this week, so it was quite
timely! Sarah is kind, but firm. She quietly walks away or does something
different. She tries to handle difficult situations on her own without always
going to the teacher. She doesn’t quickly tattle, but she does firmly confront
wrong behavior. She also stands up for others when they are mistreated.
If perfect
Jesus was hated, then we can expect to be hated, too. Of course, Jesus always
knew exactly how to handle every difficult situation. We can pray for wisdom to
know when we need to quietly walk away or firmly (yet lovingly) confront.
