Justification by Hate

I am always reviewing my life to see the many ways I try to justify myself instead of believing in my justification through Christ. I am very sophisticated in how I do this because justification by faith is almost too good to be true- and I’d rather have a reason for God to love me than have to rely solely on his grace.

This is why I also like to observe how others attempt to justify themselves. While it it tempting to justify myself by showing how other people justify themselves as well (does that whirlwind of justification make sense) I intend to point these things out to remind myself of the many ways I try to do it myself.

One existential example I recently came across is the restoration of Roy Williams in the eyes of Kansas Basketball fans. You see Roy was our basketball coach and left us to become the coach of his alma mater- North Carolina. At first it was hard to blame him for making the change- who wouldn’t want to coach their own school’s team. Soon, however, people started hating Williams. Rumors started to circulate about how he left KU- which I won’t gossip about here- which gave us a reason to hate him (justified our hate).

Our hearts don’t take loss well. When we are confronted with loss we have to explain (justify) it somehow. One option is that it could be our fault. No one likes to live with that option- even if it isn’t true- so we often try to find another explanation to justify the loss. Any justification will do as long as it isn’t our fault and we can live with ourselves once again.

In the case of Kansas Basketball, we had to justify loosing Williams because we couldn’t believe that it was our fault. We are KANSAS after all. We are a legacy school whose only coach with a loosing record was James Naismith himself (the creator of the game itself, if you don’t know him). We are consistently ranked at the top of the polls every year. We are never absent from the NCAA tournament. The more we build up our basketball righteousness, the harder time we have in justifying our loss of Williams. The harder time it is to justify this loss the more we have to hate Williams. Therefore the rumors of how he left grew and grew until we could justify the loss and live with ourselves again.

This anger and self-righteous justification continued until a couple weeks ago when Kansas and its new coach (the one who replaced Williams) finally defeated Williams and the Tarheels in the Final Four. Now that we can prove (justify) that we are better than him after all, we can finally accept him back into the pantheon of great Kansas Basketball coaches. That is why a Lawrence barbershop recently returned William’s portrait to a place of honor- we’ve proven that we are better than he is after all.

How many times have I been a hater in light of loss? How many times have I resorted to justifying myself like this? How many times have I turned my back on the righteousness of Christ because I wanted to prove myself better than another who has moved on? What will it take for me to “forgive” those who have supposedly hurt me by leaving?

Its just like that old hymn reminds me, “my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” When I believe that the hatred is relieved and I can love those even without defeating them.