Do You Really Want to See That Justice is Served?

It seems like there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t hear about someone “getting justice” or “escaping justice.” On May 2nd of last year, when Osama Bin Laden was shot to death by American commandos, there were more than a few headlines that read “Justice Served!” Later that summer, Casey Anthony, a Florida mother accused of murdering her own daughter was found Not Guilty on the charge, but many people were outraged at the rendering, complaining that she had “escaped justice.” And just a few days ago, we learned that, after former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour pardoned 222 convicted felons, there were all sorts of complaints that it was “unjust” to have done so.

If there are any controveries that surround those accused of a serious offense, they focus only upon whether or not they did, indeed, commit the crime in question. After that, it’s just assumed, as if it were some apriori truth permanently engraved on the sky, that the guilty are supposed “to receive justice,” a euphemism for “to be made to suffer to the same degree of suffering they caused.”

But so very little is said about what nonsense it is to think that, even were it possible to be 100% sure that every single conviction rendered is accurate, putting the convicted in a cage for the rest of their life or killing them, somehow, makes things “even.” As if to say, “All is well again, now that so-and-so is behind bars or dead.”

Oh really? Even steven? All back to balance, just like the one upheld by the ancient pagan goddess Justitia wearing a blindfold? “Even,” which is the real meaning of the word “just” and, thus, the root of the word “justice” and the name of this deity who is supposedly “served” when such revenge is carried out?

Should Followers of Jesus Serve the Deity Justitia?

Now before I go on, let me once again make a few disclaimers. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be outraged when a crime is committed, when someone is badly injured by another human being, or tortured or murdered or raped or kidnapped. Of course, anyone with any sense of decency and, I should add, with the same sense of right and wrong that Jesus taught, should be outraged at any suffering or loss caused unneccesarily. But such indignation ought not lead to getting even, getting “justice,” getting revenge!

Also, I am fully aware that there are some people who are so damaged in their minds and, at the present time anyway, there is no known way to cure or rehabilitate some people. No matter what we do or how hard we try, there are some who can only be prevented from hurting others by keeping them from roaming freely. But even if we have to permanently institutionalize some people, this should be a last resort and done so with great regret! The purpose should not be to get back at them or to make them pay for what they did. In other words, not prisons, but places of humane care.

Further, let me be clear that I fully understand that there are some situations in which, the only way to stop someone from doing something really bad, is to hurt them in some way in order to disable them. And in rarer cases, the only way to stop some people from doing mortal harm, is to take their life first.

But even then, we should not be happy about it! There shouldn’t be any glee and, certainly, no self-deceipt into thinking such these justified homocides are anything to be proud of, even when they are necessary, but only a necessary evil and, again, a last resort. There should also follow a good deal of examination in order to see how such situations can be prevented in the future.

So, not to worry, I am not advocating that violence should be tolerated. And I get do get it that the level of visceral reaction by the victims or the loved ones of victims of crimes is tremendous and can’t be helped. I’ve little doubt that were someone to bring harm to any of my loved ones, I would probably feel a deep desire to retaliate and, were I not restrained, who is to say that I would not be able to stop myself from acting out against someone in a violent manner, were I to catch someone who had violated one of my children or grandchildren.

There are very few of us who do not have the instinct to get even.

But herein lies the problem–just because the drive for revenge is a very common instinct, that doesn’t make it right! And it’s not only because, in the moment of great indignation, when our capacity to reason is suspended and the primitive part of ourselves takes over, it’s easy to take out our revenge on the wrong person. But as bad as that is, it’s still wrong even in those cases when we have the right person and his or her guilt is beyond all doubt!

The problem is that getting justice accomplishes one thing and one thing only–it doubles down on the evil committed. We end up becoming just like the person who was “the first to spill blood.” We descend into the same pit he is in. And when we get our revenge, our so-called justice, we’ve only added more abuse, more violence and more death, a cycle that never ceases and enlarges as more and more people are sucked into it like a black hole.

The fact is that as long as we tolerate the notion that it is ever OK to hurt someone as the proper response to what that someone did to hurt another, then we are only imitating that very same bad behavior! In reality, all we are doing is reinforcing what’s going on in the criminal mind! The coldest of cold-hearted murderers, when caught, tried and sentenced to death has been cheered on all along to do as he does by our Criminal Justice System, the only difference being the manner of dress or name of the group doing the killing.

A couple of millennia ago, a poor, country healer and teacher began to argue against the notion of serving any deity of revenge. Though the God of his people were, for the most part, convinced otherwise, he began to explain how the God he believed in was different, how He was not out to do unto others as they did unto Him, but just the opposite. In the end, he made his case for this revolutionary concept by offering up his own life and went to his death saying, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

How so very contradictory, then, to think for one second that the God of this same Jesus would ever want to get even with anyone! How much nuttier is it to think He would go far beyond getting even, but to get back at people in an infinitely worse way by putting anyone in Hell! No, while we humans still struggle with our tendency to strike back, we’ve been given some very Good News–that there is a much better way, the way of correction and forgiveness, that the cycle of revenge can, and we could say, has already been broken, on a hill called Calvary.

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