If you look prior to someone taking the life of another, it involves belittling them, making them see less than what they are, and then they deed is done.

That’s how militaries around the world accomplish their task. They make their own people righteous and deliverers standing bravely against what is wrong. And the others as evil and tyrants and people who need to be stopped. If they didn’t tell such stories, nobody in their right mind would go and take the life of another.

But as soon as mockery sets in, it’s almost inevitable. Because mockery makes for an “us/them” paradigm and one that “we” don’t want to be like the “them.”

Where you see mockery, you see trouble. Someone is eventually going to die. Maybe it’s the mocked who thinks life isn’t worth living anymore. Or maybe it’s the mocker who now feels a sense of moral superiority and will find a way in their mind to justify taking a life.

When Jesus was getting ready to be crucified, the only way for the soldiers to go through such a grisly deed was to engage in mockery. Psychology that’s about the only way you could will yourself to make it happen. Mockery belittles one person and makes the other feel self-righteous.

and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” (Mt 27:29)

And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him (Mt 27:31)

So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying (Mt 27:41)

Everyone who went to kill him had to mock him–the soldiers, the chief priests, the scribes, the elders. Mockery separates.

Right now I am watching a lot of debates to understand two sides of an issue. What I see on both sides in the comments is heartbreaking. It is all mockery. On both sides. It is sad to see.

People think it’s fun or funny. It’s not. It will eventually lead to violence and death.

Let’s commit that we ourselves will not be a part of mockery. That we will live honorably with one another.

Yes, there’s a time and place for mockery. Elijah mocked the prophets of Baal. And there are other places in Scripture too. But when it becomes common place, an everyday occurrence, it is a problem.

All of humanity. Let’s do better.

And let’s remember how Jesus responded.

When they hurled insults at him he didn’t retaliate.

When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly (1 Pet 2:23).