Fight Fire with Water
6 min read
8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. 9 Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
—Mark 11:8-10
“Hosanna” is one of the words of devotion that is the same in every language. Literally it means “I beg you to save us.” But the crowd was singing “Hosanna” not so much to literally beg Jesus to save them, but to acknowledge their understanding that He is indeed the Messiah, and that they expected Him to save them.
Of course, their understanding of His role as Messiah was completely different from what Jesus actually came to do. The crowd expected Jesus to save the Jewish people from Roman dominion using military power. Jesus came to save the world from the curse of sin by actually handing Himself over to the evil of this world.
The perfection, the beauty, and the power of God’s strategy to save the world is beyond human comprehension. The devil threw everything that he had at Jesus, expending his entire arsenal of evil. But still, Jesus arose victorious. In fact, the only way for the devil to have won is if Jesus had tried to avoid being the target of the devil’s onslaught. But Jesus took it all. And by doing so, Jesus completely incapacitated the devil’s power and nullified the curse of sin.
By handing over His one and only Son to the evil of this world, God made a definitive statement when Christ arose victorious: The evil one has absolutely no power over God.
And if the evil one has absolutely no power over God, then the evil one has absolutely no power to undo God’s sovereign plan, and the evil one has absolutely no power over those of us who place our hope and trust in Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord.
And the implications of these truths are pretty incomprehensible, even for those of us who believe.
There is a saying that goes, “Fight fire with fire.” And many, if not most, people might agree with that saying in matters of conflict. But we should realize that “fight fire with fire” is a saying that applies to war. And even in war, fighting fire with fire only leads to escalation. How much more so in the conflicts that we encounter every day?
The incident with George Floyd back in 2020 comes to mind. I have always wondered if the taunting of the bystanders motivated the officer to exert a little extra pressure on Floyd’s neck with his knee. At the very least, I wonder if the taunting distracted the officer from really seeing Floyd’s condition. Obviously, the officer is accountable for his actions. But if we know that people are broken and imperfect, aren’t the people who were taunting the officer responsible in part for Floyd’s death?
If we are looking at a burning building, we don’t fight fire with fire. We fight fire with water.
In the same way, when it comes to the evil in this world, we cannot fight evil with evil. Rather, we can only overcome evil with love. That is what Jesus did, and those who are in Christ through faith are called to do the same. … Which just goes to show how desperately we do need Jesus every day.
Father, Forgive me whenever I try to fight fire with fire. Help me to experience the love of Christ that He demonstrated on the cross. Help me to have the strength in the Holy Spirit to fight evil with love. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
