Set The Pain Aside

13 September 2026  Sirach 27:30-28:7 

“Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight.”  

(Sirach 27:30-28:7)

There is a reason why Batman is called “The Dark Knight.” It’s because he is one of the darkest characters in all of graphic fiction. So is Frank Castle, aka “The Punisher.” So is Jack Reacher in crime fiction. All of these characters, and other less well-known ones, are driven by grief, rage, and vengeance. And they are immensely popular.

They are popular because there is something about anger and vengeance that feels absolutely right. The desire to get even with those who have wronged you is an acid that comes from a very deep place, and in some it rises up so high that you can taste it swimming around your back teeth.

On the Cross, God in Christ Jesus went to a very dark place, the very darkest place, so that He could reach us all. And the Risen Christ still has wounds that we can see, wounds that we put there. We can’t undo the wounds. But we can walk with Him in the Garden again. That’s the kind of relationship we can have, if we are willing to put the pain aside as He did.

It is bitter and sort of sweet at the same time. The problem, of course, that characters like Batman, the Punisher, and Reacher never seem to find out, is that anger and vengeance don’t work. There is no getting even with people who have wronged you. You can never get back to the place you were before the wrong happened, before your spouse left you, before someone took your stuff, or injured someone you love. You can never forget the way those wrongs made you feel, especially if the person who wronged you has never acknowledged the wrong. The scars remain, and if you rub them a little the echoes of that pain always come back. Batman has been discovering, and rediscovering, that since 1939.

Batman, the Punisher, and Reacher try to kill their way out of their pain, which is precisely the way that the gospel forbids, not just because it is wrong, but because it is useless. The gospel proposes forgiveness instead, but it is a strategy mostly misunderstood. Many believe forgiveness means changing our minds about sin, which is absolutely what it does not mean. We don’t change our minds about the sin when we forgive. We change our minds about the pain. Sin is still awful, and we should certainly continue to hate it. What we have to let go of is the pain, let go of holding it close because we think that if we let go of it we are giving up our self-respect, or sense of self-worth. Sin certainly means that there is a kind of relationship we can no longer have with those who have wronged us. Forgiveness means letting go of the pain so that we can find the relationship we can have. Letting go of the pain may feel, at first, like a kind of dying, and many resist it because of that. But you can’t kill your way out of your pain. You can, however, die your way out of it.

That’s what Jesus did.

The relationship Adam and Eve had with God is gone because of sin, and there is no going back to the Garden before the serpent showed up. That ship has sailed, and God posted an angel with a flaming sword at the entrance to the Garden to keep people the hell out (cf. Genesis 3:24). God hasn’t changed His mind about sin. But He has set pain aside, and come after us. On the Cross, God in Christ Jesus went to a very dark place, the very darkest place, so that He could reach us all. And the Risen Christ still has wounds that we can see, wounds that we put there. We can’t undo the wounds. But we can walk with Him in the Garden again. That’s the kind of relationship we can have, if we are willing to put the pain aside as He did.