What Randall Margraves Reminded Me

Larry Nassar has been sentenced to more years in prison that he will live, and that is justice.  Nassar is convicted of child molestation, sexual abuse and more of the disgusting like and has been accused of the same by hundreds of women who were girls at the time. 

During his sentencing a man named Randall Margraves, whose daughters were abused by Nassar, spoke.  Margraves in pure anger rushed at Nassar to attack him and was stopped by bailiffs.  Margraves was in the wrong to lose self-control in the courtroom.  He was wrong to try and exercise vigilante justice.  But as I watched the video I cried because I understand his anger. 

                                                 (Warning: crude language in video)

"The opposite of love is not hate; it is indifference."  Elie Wiesel

"Anger is actually a form of love." Tim Keller

Anger is not the opposite of love; rather it is love in motion.  The reason that father lashed out like that is because of an intense love for his daughters.  Love can breed hate and it can create anger when what we love is threatened or hurt.

As I watched that video I hoped that I would have more self-control than Randall Margraves and the same passionate love for my children as he obviously does.  His daughters may feel love and embarrassment mixed together, but boy did he show them that he loves them deeply and will literally fight for them.  He was wrong in doing what he did but he displayed love for them and despite his wrong approach his love moved me to tears and has moved me to tears each time I've watched the video.

But here's what I thought soon after seeing that clip:

It is a lot easier to kill for someone than to die for them.

Jesus hates our sin because He loves us.  God's love for us would not allow Him to be indifferent (not that any force or emotion has reign over Him).  God's love brewed up into righteous anger multiple times in the Bible.  God's love for us is like King David's love for his sheep for which he fought the bear and the lion.

It is a lot easier to kill for someone than to die for them.

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13

"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrated His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:7-8

Christ's love brewed up into an anger, a hatred of sin.  Jesus' loving anger brought Him to die for you, while you were still His enemy (Romans 5:10).  It is a lot easier to kill for someone than to die for them and Jesus died for you and me while we were undeserving, and we will never be deserving of it.  In fact, Jesus was willing to die for Larry Nassar and if Nassar would only cry out in repentance Jesus would show, even a man so obviously evil as that, the full extent of His infinite love.

Being a husband and father has given me a few people I could kill for or even die for.  I understand the depths of the well of love a little more, but Jesus gets to a depth that is unfathomable.  Jesus' list of those He did die for includes those that you and I would rather kill than hug.

Jesus' love for you is SO great.  I pray that "you, being rooted and established in love, may have the power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge... that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:17b-19)

Mediate on that sacrificial love today.