A fool’s wrath is known at once, But a prudent man covers shame.
Proverbs 12:16 (NKJV)
Vedius Pollio isn’t exactly a household name. He would be found in few history books, and then possibly appearing only in the footnotes. He was a rather obscure wealthy landowner in ancient Rome. For what we can gather, he had a fairly remarkable success story. He had been a slave and was eventually granted his freedom, presumably for serving his master well. He quickly demonstrated business and financial skills and after some time became quite wealthy. He eventually grew so rich that when he held banquets the elites of Roman society would attend. As he grew in prominence he made important personal connections with the business and political leaders within the Roman Empire. These relationships succeeded in winning him personal acquaintance with Emperor Augustus—at that time the single most politically powerful human being on the planet. The day finally arrived when the emperor himself would grace one of Vedius’ magnificent celebrations.
However, Vedius is not remembered for his wealth, or his banquets, or even his “pulled-up-by-the-boot-straps” success story. He is only known for his cruelty. When the meal was being served, one of Vedius’ slaves shattered a crystal vessel in front of the guests. Enraged, the host ordered (as he had done before) the negligent slave to be thrown into his garden pool filled with deadly lampreys—certainly an excruciatingly painful death. Breaking free from his fellow slaves (now serving as his executioners), he fell before the feet of the emperor and implored not to be killed in such a gruesome manner. As the story goes, Augustus saved the slave’s life by ordering all the crystal in the house to be smashed and fed to the lampreys.
How often do we overreact to situations? Granted, perhaps in our anger we have not ordered someone’s execution (though at times the only thing that retrains us is our lack of legal authority to do so). The principle here is the all-too-human tendency to respond to our irritations with fierce, unforgiving wrath. Our children disobey so we launch into a verbal tirade. Our spouses annoy so we abuse them with our tongues. At work we demean a fellow worker behind his back for a perceived insult. When we sense a betrayal or an offense our hearts darken against the individual and we smother any trace of love of compassion for them.
For Christ followers, our response is to be love mixed with wisdom—and it is only in Christ that these two things collide together. We are commanded to forgive, but we are also commanded to wisely implement that forgiveness. It is not enough to simply forgive a wrongdoing; our hearts should also yearn to protect the wrongdoer if we can. Instead of showing them our anger, which points the spotlight on the faults of the wrongdoer, we are to offer them our mercy and love in such a manner that takes the focus off their wrongdoing. Sinful wrath wants a public hearing so that all may see our vindication. Saintly love wants a private giving of mercy so that the wrongdoer may see our compassion.
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