3 Biblical Responses to Violence

“What I am supposed to do?”

That’s the question that’s been on my mind after one of the most violent weeks in our nation’s recent memory. For most of the week, the big story was bombs being sent through the mail to high-profile critics of President Trump. The alleged bomber was apprehended without having racked up a body count, though the chief goal of his terrorism—provoking fear—had been accomplished. Unfortunately, Saturday’s news was bloodier: 11 people killed in their synagogue by an anti-Semitic gunman.

The national argument quickly became about who to blame for the week’s sudden rash of domestic terrorism: the president, the media, the Internet, guns, and Congress were all proposed to be at fault, depending on whom you listened to. If Republicans would get serious about gun control, if President Trump would act more presidential, if Democrats would stop exploiting tragedies, if the mainstream media would quit glorifying madmen…simply put, if the Other Side would get their act together, then everything would be fine, said the people with agendas and microphones.

But I’m not interested in playing the blame game this time around, in shouting at ideological opponents until we’re all as exhausted as we are unmoved. My concern is what I’m supposed to do now. In a nation where hate and violence are on the rise, how can I—a Christian, a husband, a father, and an American (in that order)—respond when hatred rears its ugly head?

I found three biblical options from the gospel accounts of the Passion.

The first comes from Simon Peter, the brash leader of Jesus’s twelve disciples. When a detachment of soldiers came to arrest Jesus and drag him before the chief priests for a false trial and subsequent crucifixion, Peter drew his sword and prepared for battle. In the face of violence, he wasn’t going to go down without a fight; he was going to defend Jesus to his dying breath. Striking at the first person he could get his hands on, he cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant Malchus, leaving the man writhing on the ground clutching his face in agony. Peter had made himself clear—no one was going to hurt Jesus while he was around.

John Wayne would approve. Jesus did not. Turning to his disciple, he said, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who live by the sword will die by the sword.” And reaching his hand toward Malchus, Jesus healed the man who had come to arrest him.

That same night brought the second option for responding to violence, this time in the person of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. Having found Jesus guilty of blasphemy, the chief priests dragged him before Pilate, demanding swift punishment. Faced with a mob of angry, zealous accusers, Pilate initially tried to talk them down, then attempted to bargain with them for the life of the innocent Jesus. But seeing that their minds were made up, that nothing would satisfy them but bloodshed, he washed his hands before them and declared, “I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” Having abandoned his responsibility, Pilate left Jesus to his fate.

We’ll come back to the third option, but let’s deal with the first two. In Pilate we see the easiest choice when confronted with violence: do nothing. Blame someone else, pretend you have no authority to effect change, refuse to take any sort of stand. Value your position, agenda, and power more than the lives of innocents. And then watch with shrugged shoulders as hatred wins.

In Peter we see a more activist option: meet force with force. Disregard Jesus so that you can protect him, baptize violence as a tool against the enemy, fight back by any means necessary. An eye for an eye, a life for a life. And then watch with confusion when Jesus rebukes you.

I see a lot of Christians responding to our national epidemic of violence—gun violence, domestic violence, sexual violence, and now political violence, just to name a few—with Pilate’s shrugged shoulders. “There are always going to be crazy people,” they say. “It’s a fallen world,” they say. Alluding vaguely to a need for thoughts and prayers, they adopt a position of helplessness, a stubborn unwillingness to meet violence with anything more difficult than sadness.

We can do better than the Pilate Option.

I see other believers responding to the rise in hatred and violence with Peter’s clenched fist. “What we need are more guns,” they say. “This is why the death penalty is so important,” they say. “All I know is, my family is safe,” they say, patting the not-so-concealed handgun at their waist.

The problem with the Peter Option, despite how secure it may make us feel, is Jesus, who rebukes our attempts to protect innocence through violence. We can do better, Jesus says, than the Peter Option.

So what’s left? Well, on a weekend marked by cowardice, hatred, violence, and death, there were a few—some whom we know by name, others lost to history—who continued following Jesus to the bitter end, and then to a glorious new beginning. While the twelve had fled the garden when Jesus was arrested, a group of women led by Mary Magdalene boldly came to the cross to be with their Lord in his final moments. While the twelve hid in an upper room after Jesus’s death, Mary and a friend went with Joseph of Arimathea to bury their Lord. And so it was that, on that glorious Sunday morning, women—Mary among them—were the first to discover his empty tomb.

When violence struck, Mary and her friends refused to leave Jesus’s side. When hatred was on parade, the quiet witness of Mary and her friends was love. And when death seemed victorious, Mary and her friends refused even then to abandon the Lord of life. The witness of those women gives us our third option when confronting violence, the Mary Option: standing as sentinels of love even when the world around you is consumed by hatred.

The Mary Option doesn’t maintain your power like the Pilate Option, because it comes from a place of weakness instead of strength. The Mary Option doesn’t protect you like the Peter Option, because it is more concerned with loving the innocent than with hurting the guilty. The Mary Option frankly isn’t about you at all.

The Mary Option is about choosing Jesus’s way instead of the world’s, about staying true to Jesus even when your flesh demands satisfaction, about showing love when it makes more sense to show hate. Choosing the Mary Option means quietly but firmly shining the light of Christ in a dark world.  The Mary Option requires discipline and courage, conviction and faith, because it means sticking with Jesus even when victory isn't in sight.

What might it look like to choose the Mary Option after our week of violence? Sending a handwritten note of encouragement to your local synagogue. Praying sincerely for the congressman you didn’t vote for. Voting your conscience—and refusing to shame those who voted differently from you. Buying coffee for a friend whose politics you can’t stand. Maybe most of all, remembering that every person—even a person whose beliefs, background, race, and religion are different than yours—is your neighbor. Simply put, choosing the Mary Option means going above and beyond to ensure that, in a world dominated by hate, love has its say.

Will the Mary Option end our national surge in hatred and violence? Well...no, probably not. National problems require national solutions. But this much I can guarantee you—no one ever made the world a worse place by loving like Jesus. And if more of us will choose the Mary Option in a world of Peters and Pilates, who knows? Maybe we’ll see a resurrection yet.