Luke 23:34 Jesus said, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."
I love superhero movies. Ironman, Spiderman, Superman, Batman. The idea of the strong fighting for the weak and winning against strong odds. There was one superhero movie that stuck out for me more with only one scene: The Incredible Hulk.
I wasn't a big fan of the first full feature film they did, but this last one in 2008 was really good. There's a scene in this one where Bruce Banner is in a foreign worn down factory that he's worked at for a while with very little pay along with other natives of that country. Well, when Bruce steps in a helps out a lady from these rough guys, they begin to beat him up. While they are scurrying to back him into a corner, while hitting him at the same time, Bruce warns them to stop - to not make him angry (the quotable Incredible Hulk favorite), they laugh and continue in their actions.
Why does Bruce warn these guys? Don't we all secretly want bad things to happen to bad people? Maybe, maybe not. Bruce knew that if they continued, he would turn into the hulk and not be able to control himself and may perhaps kill them. This stuck out for me because it was so parallel to the Bible.
Jesus hung on a cross being beaten and ridiculed and He knew the damage that could be done to those people if God decided to step in. Would they have deserved it? Sure. But Jesus in his infinite mercy and grace did not want that.
Did you know that we hold the same power? That when we choose to let Jesus lead our lives, that same power is within our grasp. The power that miraculously takes away cancer can fight the enemy. Could not God still send a thousand angels to flip over the car that just cut us off on the freeway and end that drivers life there and then? But would we want that? Does someone truly deserve to spend an eternity in Hell because we didn't take the time to say - "Jesus loves you"? In our own anger, we need to stop and say a prayer for those that are unkind to us - because 'with power, comes great responsibility'.