As you know, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking and praying about current events in Iran and the Middle East. I watch the news like many of you and find myself consumed with trying to make sense of all of the politics, military strategies, competing claims, and opinions. Everyone has explanations. Everyone knows who is right and wrong. Everyone thinks they know what should happen next. But then I read about the face of a child. And for me, everything changes. Discussing war from a distance is easy. We talk about military targets, retaliation, deterrence, national security, victory or defeat. All of those terms are fine as long as we remember that underneath all of those words are mothers, fathers, grandparents, sons, daughters, and children. Children who are dying.
As a pastor and as a Christian, I cannot sit by and watch the death of innocent people, particularly children, and simply view their deaths as collateral damage or the consequence of war. Those children have a mom. They have a father. They were loved by someone. But more importantly, those children were created by God and loved by Him. The Bible tells us in Genesis 1:27 that we were created in the image of God. Notice what else that verse doesn’t say. It doesn’t say Americans were made in God’s image. It doesn’t say Christians were made in God’s image. It says humanity. All of us. An Iranian child is created in God’s image just as much as an Israeli child or a Palestinian child. An American soldier is made in God’s image just like the mother afraid for her children because explosions are happening outside her door. Their nationality does not make them valuable. Their religion does not make them valuable. Even their government’s policies do not make them valuable. God already has. Sometimes I think Christians can lose sight of that.
It is possible to love America with all of our hearts and still mourn when innocent lives are lost in another country. It is possible to believe that governments have a responsibility to stand up to evil and still insist that innocent life be protected. It is possible to disagree with the Iranian government without allowing our hearts to become hardened against the Iranian people. In fact, if we truly love Jesus, those things aren’t contradictions at all. They are us taking our faith seriously. Jesus had a unique ability to notice people that everyone else ignored. When others wanted the children pushed away, Jesus replied in Matthew 19:14, “Let the little children come to me.”
Throughout Scripture, God reminds His people to care for the vulnerable and those who have little power to protect themselves. Proverbs 31:8 tells us to speak up on behalf of those who can’t speak for themselves. Psalm 82 instructs us to defend the weak and needy. Nowhere do we find the Scriptures telling us to only care for those who look like us, worship like us, vote like us, or live within our borders. Far from it. In fact, Jesus goes much farther in Matthew 5:44 when He tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. That is a beautiful verse until you have enemies. When that happens, it becomes extremely difficult to live it out.
When we love our enemies, Jesus isn’t saying that evil doesn’t exist. He isn’t asking us to ignore injustice. Evil is taken very seriously in the Bible. So is justice. In fact, Romans 13 talks about how governing authorities have a responsibility to restrain evil and maintain peace. But if we ever allow biblical justice to cause us to lose our compassion, then we have misunderstood justice altogether.
As Christians, I believe we should be able to hold two truths in our heads at once. We can condemn evil no matter where it happens and mourn the death of innocent people no matter where they die. We can pray for America, and we can pray for Iranians. We can pray for Israel, and we can pray for Palestinians. We can pray for soldiers who might be put into impossible situations and civilians who find themselves in the middle of a conflict they never wanted. We can pray for justice and still pour out our hearts to God on behalf of mercy. That isn’t weakness. That is what it looks like to follow Jesus.
When war goes on for any length of time, my greatest fear is that we begin to stop seeing people. We begin to view entire nations as “them.” We draw lines on maps, and suddenly everyone who lives on the other side is the enemy. Families become statistics. Dead children become distant numbers on the bottom of a TV screen. You know who never saw people that way? Jesus did not. He saw the hurting boy that everyone else just walked past. He saw the woman nobody else seemed to care about. He saw Zacchaeus when everyone else despised him. He saw children when his disciples tried to shoo them away. And hanging, dying on a cross, he looked at the very people who were killing Him and prayed, “Father, forgive them.”
The cross is why I cannot divide the world into those who deserve my compassion and those who don’t. So how am I praying? I pray for the Iranian mother comforting her child. I pray for the Israeli parents wondering what the future will bring. I pray for Palestinian mothers who just want their children to grow up in peace. I pray for American servicemen and women who may be asked to put their lives at risk. I pray for our president and our leaders here in Washington. I pray for Iranian leaders and leaders throughout the Middle East. I pray God will give them wisdom that is greater than politics, pride, retaliation, or fear. I pray God will restrain evil and protect the innocent. I pray that children will be spared.
And when I pray for peace, I pray that every leader has the courage to pursue it whenever possible. I pray for our enemies. Not because I think they’re right. Not because I want evil to win. And not because I am naive about what is going on in the world. I pray for them because Jesus loved them enough to die for them, and He tells me to pray for them too. If we begin to pray like that, if we allow the cross to teach us how to love our enemies, then we have started down a path that the world desperately needs.
Brothers and sisters, the next few days (or perhaps weeks) are going to be full of opinions, political debates, and propaganda on both sides. Please don’t let the side that loves Jesus best be the side that forgets that there are human beings on the other side. On both sides. When you hear Iran mentioned, remember they are people. They are grandparents gathering around kitchen tables. They are moms kissing their kids goodnight. They are dads worrying about how they will provide for their families. They are teenagers wondering what their future will hold. They are boys who love to play ball with their friends and girls who love to giggle and play with dolls. They are children. Children who have absolutely nothing to do with the conflict. They are the vulnerable. They are valuable. They are the Kingdom of God.
In Christ,
James