In Revenge of the Sith, we see one of the most impressive lightsaber fights in the Star Wars film universe.
The fight began with Obi-Wan confronting Anakin about his padawan’s slide to the Dark Side.
Obi-Wan did not want to confront Anakin. He pleaded with Yoda to allow Obi-Wan to confront Palpatine instead.
Yet, confront Anakin he did.
Their fight raged on and on until Anakin was blinded by his pride and his overconfidence in his power.
After Obi-Wan has struck Anakin down on Mustafar, his emotions come to the surface as a tearful Obi-Wan tells Anakin, “You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you.”
But then Obi-Wan gathers up Anakin’s lightsaber and leaves his friend to burn to death.
As a mentor, friend, and brother to Anakin, Obi-Wan did what was needed when he found out what Anakin had done. Anakin had killed younglings and turned to the dark side.
Obi-Wan confronted him about it and gave Anakin a chance to repent and return to the light side. Anakin refused.
When it comes to discipline, emotions often come into play. If we were to implement a Scriptural way of dealing with people’s wrongdoings, we could remove emotions from the process.
In Matthew 18: 15-17, we hear Jesus tell us, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
We hope we regain our brother (or sister). If we go one-on-one and then two-on-one, we have attempted to solve the issue.
The next step is to bring it before the faith community, and the final step is to shun them in hopes that they will still repent.
Obi-Wan could not do this since the Jedi order had been decimated. He even told Anakin that it was over, but Anakin kept pushing the attack.
Some in our lives will do that.
We need to be willing to have them hate us, like Anakin did Obi-Wan.
We need to be willing to walk away and “shun” them in hopes that they will eventually repent.
But all of this needs to be done out of love for the brother (or sister).
As James 5:19-20 tell us, “My brothers if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”
