This is one of the more powerful short stories I’ve seen in a long time.(ht) I dare you to watch it. It’s on forgiveness.
Lately I’ve been contemplating a lot on the nature of justice. What is true justice in humanity, justice that stands the test of time? What is the nature of it that we would subject ourselves to it, freely. And this video I think really reveals it in such a simple but succinct way.
True justice is the act of both truth AND grace. It’s getting to the truth and reality of our own brokenness. But it is also embracing grace as the defining response to that brokenness. Both are necessary for true justice to emerge in our lives.
This is why I have such a hard time with much of the dialog around judgment and hell. It doesn’t sufficiently convey the true nature of justice. We hold onto our desires for punitive justice for the sake of revenge. We want God to get back at the people who hurt us. But in holding onto a punitive idea of justice we validate that response to be used on ourselves. We create the trap that snares US.
Historically the nature of justice has been explored in two ways: punitive and amnesty. Punitive is best embodied in the Nuremberg trials. It’s the idea that we go after the those who harmed others with aggressive tactics. We mercilessly hunt them down and put them on trial with no hope for grace. Punitive justice seeks out truth but virtually ignores the dignity of the person and refuses to embody grace. It says that those who harm are evil and need to be punished. But in taking on this stance we embody the same merciless death that we are convicting. In order to punish the criminal we must become like them. This is the fundamental problem with punitive justice. It’s a downward spiral that no one recovers from.
The flip side response is amnesty. Amnesty ignores truth. It’s the idea of a free pass. We simply ignore the reality of what happens and move on. Amnesty ignores truth to the detriment of both the victim and the oppressor. It ignores the cost and the consequence, allowing the event to remain unrecognized so we can let it go. Amnesty embodies death in the same way by ignoring the problem and assuming it will just go away with time. But it won’t.
The cross is the third option and the most restorative justice possible. It’s both truth and grace put on full display. The cross reveals the extent to which we are broken. It reveals the moment we would actually embody death to the point that we would actually kill God. It is truth personified. We look at the cross and see truth in its hideous glory. And yet at the same time we see the full embodiment of grace. We see a God saying, “See, I still love you.”
True justice always saw the person as more important than the event. It assumed that our humanity was best exemplified not in the capacity to harm but to forgive, to transcend what happened. Its why the act of forgiveness, as represented in the video is so resonating. It’s true. The son spoke the truth but he responded in grace. The father accepted the truth and received grace. That is salvation.
