We're on a Mission from God

Flipped on TNT last night and caught about an hour of the brilliant 1993 film Tombstone. When, or if you watch it, notice that the film is brilliant in part because it has deviated from historical record. The historical account takes a long time to develop, and does not lend itself to powerful filmmaking.

The film begins with a definition of who is good and who is bad. This is important because in today's western the sheriff isn't always good and wearing a white hat, and the bad guys don't always have mustaches and a black hat. In fact, the introduction tells us that the bad guys wear red sashes, and the good guy is Wyatt Earp and his brothers. This may be disputed by historians, but since when has Hollywood given a fig for history? Doc Holiday was a dentist, but Hollywood can't reconcile a gunfighter / dentist.

I feel like a dufus for constantly warning everyone about the spoilers, but I know how some people are, so be ye warned, I'm talking about the highlights of the film, which means that if you read it, you know how it ends.

Val Kilmer is his best role, possiby ever, in Doc Holiday (I'm your huckleberry). Visually and verbally there are references to the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse, setting the stage for Wyatt to spill blood as an agent for justice. The film really has one defining moment in it, when Wyatt moves from former lawman and part time deputy to God's Avenging Angel. The night that the Cowboys move against the Earps, we see Morgan die and Virgil bleeding all over the place. After watching his older brother lose the use of his arm, and his younger brother move into eternity, Wyatt walks out in to the pouring rain covered in the blood of his dead brother. His girlfriend and wife both approach him. The girlfriend is rejected with "Get away from me" and the wife turns away of her own accord. Blood on his hands and standing in the rain, Wyatt receives justification from the audience for everything that follows, whether he was right or wrong to that point.


I noticed this because recently I touched on the imprecatory psalms, which are difficult no matter how you view them. We see in the New Testament that we are to love our neighbor, and that includes our enemies. But in Psalm 69, the psalmist asks that the Lord's anger would overtake the writer's enemies, and that they would be blotted out of the book of life. Very serious requests indeed.

The answer is closely tied, in my mind, to how a loving God can send people to hell. Even in the OT, God forbade revenge, yet God is clearly above this. Modern accusations that the God of the OT is tribal and petty lose their luster in light of a a complete understanding of who God is. God is love, but love for humanity necessarily includes justice. Growing up, if I hit my little brother, my mother responded by spanking me. Was that vindictive? No, it was love for me in demonstrating that improper actions have negative consequences, and demonstrating to my brother that right actions result in freedom from fear.


So if God loves everyone, thus must allow them all into heaven, what solace is there for those who fully trust God, and fully live for him? If the evil persecutor gains heaven just as the righteous sufferer, how is God loving. Justice and punishment are MORE evidences of God's love than the absence of them would be. If evil were to go eternally unpunished, who cares if Love even exists?

In this way, we can pray for God's justice, not revenge, on our enemies. We are not thereby absolved of our Christian duty towards them. We still must pray, minister and witness to them, in accordance with the Christian ethic we know so well. Our prayers to God must be for his justice, and our salvation.