“Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’ And they divided up his clothes by casting lots” (Luke 23:34).

 

Amy Biehl was on a mission.  She had graduated from Stanford, had done further study on a Fulbright Scholarship and arrived in South Africa.  Intending to make a difference in the injustice and wrongs that she saw in the world, she came two years before that country’s first democratic elections.  Her arrival in South Africa coincided with the anti-apartheid turmoil that devastated the country.

She was giving some of her friends a lift home when a group of people returning from a political rally spotted her mustard-yellow Mazda, stopped it, and threw a brick through the windshield.  As Amy tried to run, bleeding and dazed, she was tackled by one of the youths.  Then as her African friends shouted, “She is a comrade!” her attacker drove the blade of a borrowed pocketknife into her heart.

Ironically, she was murdered by the very ones she was trying to help.

And how did her parents respond?  “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is the response of most people, but Linda and Peter Biehl are made out of different stuff.  Her dad, Peter, is described as a “gentle but blunt-spoken man,” and her mother, a former model and political activist, is also committed to the causes that took Amy half way around the world to Africa.

Of course, they grieved deeply when they received word of her death, but strangely the Biehls have not only forgiven those who took her life but reached out to them.  Jon Jeter, a newspaperman, writes, “To the South Africans the Biehls have offered their help.  To Amy’s killers, they have offered not just absolution but friendship, taking them out to the movies or dinner just as casually as they would old friends of Amy’s from high school.   And from the deepest hurt anyone can know, they have exhumed peace and a stirring sense of purpose that they struggle to explain even to their other children or closest friends.”

“It’s a way of keeping her,” says her mother.  In the intervening years since Amy’s death in 1994, the Biehls have made repeated trips to South Africa in humanitarian causes, making a difference in the lives of many.  “People have had losses all over the world,” says her dad, “and who ever listens to them?  For better of worse they listen to us, and I don’t plan to squander that.”  (John Jeter, “Embracing a Cause…” International Herald Tribune, February 20, 2001, p. 2).

What fascinates me is how this mom and dad responded to a tragic situation.  Instead of allowing bitterness and hatred to fill their hearts, they forgave and reached out to the very ones who brought grief to their lives.  They hired the paramedic whose failure to save Amy drove him to alcohol and Prozac, to teach CPR in a town miles from the closest hospital.  They have raised money for scholarships, opened small businesses–a print shop and a construction company – and helped with housing and health needs.  They speak on behalf of humanitarian causes and have channeled more than $2.5 million dollars into needy causes.

Jesus told His disciples to “love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44, NKJV).

That is a tough assignment.  Many can never do that.  Overwhelmed with hatred and anger, they cannot forgive, let alone reach out to their enemies with kindness as the Biehls have done.

Introverting your anger is like taking poison and expecting the enemy to die.  It just doesn’t work that way.  But Peter and Linda Biehl will tell you that the way to find healing and wholeness is by doing good to your enemies.  Think about it and try it yourself!

Peter and Linda Biehl had a choice–bitterness or blessing, and they choose to forgive their enemies and then to bless those who had caused them grief.  “Are they sorry?”  Not for a moment.  Would they do the same thing again?  Undoubtedly.

Resource reading: Luke 23.