My brother Andrew, a brilliant cartoonist and storyteller, has a web comic called Moth & Ethan which covers the Old Testament narrative in the most creative way. He recently went through the story of Cain and Abel, and included some great commentary there as well on the matter. I encourage you to check it out and follow along every Saturday and Sunday.So, why did Cain kill Abel? It says here that it's because he acted wickedly while Abel did good. But what was going on in his heart? Jealousy? Anger? Shame? Fear? God told the two brothers He wanted a sacrifice. Cain was a gardener, so he brought some fruits and veggies. Abel was a herder, so he brought a beast to slaughter. God had the bigger picture in mind, and the spilling of blood was a perfect image of His coming Son to the Earth, so He told Cain his brother's sacrifice was better. And just as Judas had a choice under the conviction of Christ, so Cain had a choice on how to respond. Instead of taking this correction positively and striving to please the Lord, he decided to murder his brother for getting it right.
This is the opposite of love. The act of murder, the heart required to accomplish such a thing, is void entirely of love. It is sin, it is selfishness at its purest, whether the driving force is jealousy, anger, shame, fear. Cain could have been happy for Abel, celebrating with him his success. He could have sought Abel's help to better his own sacrifice to please God. But his feelings had been hurt and the options on his selfish, nearsighted table had to do only with changing everyone else. So, murder it would be - even the murder of his own brother.
Now, we do not all walk out the door in the morning with killing on the brain. Our day is not typically spent sharpening knives and plotting murder of our neighbor. But what is in our heart? John says, "we should love one another." And what does it look like if your heart isn't loving one another? It looks an awful lot like Cain's, who was a murderer. There is no difference, at the end of the day, because the root of it all is sin. Let us reexamine our hearts to find if love abides there and, if so, consider how we are allowing it to manifest in our daily lives to glorify Him.