students of jesus

I once forgave a man for being an ass, but he was offended by my mercy. It turns out mercy cuts like a knife. Mercy triumphs over judgment, but is it not also true that without judgment mercy cannot exist? 

The same truth, softer: in Narnia, Aslan the Christ-figure lion bounds into the scene and sets things right. Most of us love the story with a too-convenient love. We love Narnia because we do not live in Narnia. But consider Edmund, the traitor/king: for him Narnia was no walk in the park. Edmund met the hard truth of his own resentment toward his brother, and his willingness to betray his family for a mess of Turkish Delight.

In Narnia large issues are at stake: The creatures of the realm long for Aslan’s appearing. Says Mr. Beaver:

 “Wrong will be right when Aslan is in sight,

  at the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more.

When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,

  when he shakes his mane we shall know spring again.”

Yet neither sorrow nor winter happened by chance. The Lion brought judgment to realm, and those who had chosen poorly were brought face-to-face with their choices—and how their hearts had influenced those choices.

My asinine friend protested, “Maybe I am a bit blunt, but who are you to say so?” He might possibly agree he was a sinner, but he resented the judgment in the message even though it contained was mercy and grace. Perhaps, too, he did not care for the messenger.

That great man after God’s own heart, King David, cries out, “search me, Oh God, and know my heart . . . See if there is any wicked way in me.” This a pious prayer. Equally important is how God answers: who will deliver the results of God’s search? We prefer justice at a distance, and cannot abide it too close to home. Justice at a distance is comfortable because it rarely examines--me. It allows me to be on the right side of the equation every time. I find myself loving Justice as an ideal, but hiding from the judgments over my own life.

The formula, Justice, good; judgment, bad is alchemy. It causes me to believe things may be set right without the hard work of seeing something is wrong. The trap: I want only to embrace this truth by settling for the justice in far-away things and hide myself from the wrong in my own life. Justice at a distance is the easy work of loving the brother we cannot see, while we avoid the reality of our actions toward those we can. We can easily identify the far-away wrong in others while running from the close-to-home wrong in ourselves. And the chilling truth is in a world with no wrongs, all manner of evil thrives. Do I really want to create a home-environment where evil can thrive in me?

Jesus spoke to us with a liberating genius: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Perhaps this is why Peter suggests, “It is time for judgment to begin in God’s household.” We need not be afraid of this kind of judgment for one shining reason: this judgment points to mercy, and leads to freedom. “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?” asked Paul. “It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”

Here is the good news: the only true source of judgment is the very one who has demonstrated he will pay any price to set us right. Will we welcome such severe mercy in our lives? It’s the path to a life beyond mere forgiveness, into freedom.