This is a term often used when troubles and trials afflict, and somebody has hurt you oh so very deeply, we are encouraged to ‘Bury the Hatchet,’ to let bygones become bygones, to leave the past dead and buried in the past, to ‘Bury the Hatchet,’ but pride and vengeance often try to make us to aggressively rise up, and to press us to ‘Bury the Hatchet,’ and that is, deep into his skull and right between his eyes. Wroth and anger, that wanting to avenge, to get even, to punish them, to put them down, to remove them out of our lives, once and for all, but this type of thinking and actions lands us up into a ‘Criminal Court,’ and a very long sentence in a ‘Maximum Security Prison,’ with cellmates who have also all tried and failed to ‘Get Even.’
God is ‘Love,’ that experience of being forgiven and restored, God has handled the past and the oppressors, God will balance the books, let him attend to things, for us to live as really Forgiven, and to quickly forgive all those who seek to, or have actually harmed and oppressed you. Remember God never seeks to control you, Love is his reaching out to us, and our passionate desire to be affirmatively responding to be with him. Forgive – Forgiveness, forgiven and forgotten, we should always ‘Bury the Hatchet,’ deep in the ground, and not to never leave the handle sticking up so that it can be quickly grasped and used again in anger and vengeance once more. Love is ‘What you do, and not What you say.’ Matthew 5:39 “But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Proverbs 25:21-22 “If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink: For thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head, and the LORD shall reward thee.” 1 Peter 2:20-25 “For what glory [is it], if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer [for it], ye take it patiently, this [is] acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed [himself] to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.”
Isaiah 53:1-12 “Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, [there is] no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were [our] faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he [was] wounded for our transgressions, [he was] bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace [was] upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither [was any] deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put [him] to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see [his] seed, he shall prolong [his] days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, [and] shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, will I divide him [a portion] with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Luke 23:33-34 “And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.” If Jesus can burry the hatchet, to actively forgive those who are actively attacking and doing him harm, then why do we find it so hard to do the same, do we not claim to be followers of Jesus, we are totally undeserving of God’s forgiveness, so let us spread grace and mercy to all those who inadvisably afflict us. Luke 11:3-4 “Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.” If we actively invoke ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ on this point, God, treat me and forgive me just as I forgive others, then how quickly would we forgive and ‘Bury the Hatchet,’ far from sight, forever forgotten?
