And Justice for All (I need a Hero)

No, this is not about Metallica's hit album from 1988 nor is this about AL Pacino's movie from 1979. But Justice for All is what we all want, what we all desire. And rightfully so, God created us in such a way that we recognize the lack of it, and desire wrongs to be righted. 

Some may say they don't believe in evil but just pay attention to what's going on in the world for a day and see if that worldview holds up. 

I was recently thinking about my post on the violence and entertainment. In fact I started thinking about this while watching the new show Daredevil; about a guy who looses his sight and gains super powers of smell and hearing to fight crime. Now some super hero shows are light hearted and very flashy and entertaining and others have a more harsher tone. This one has the latter. I was thinking about the harshness of the tone and I realized it served a purpose. The more harshness of the material the greater vacuum it causes in the void of hope and justice. This creates the need and desire for justice, this then calls out for and almost demands that a hero stand up. It is a workable formula.

I realized the level of the harshness speaks to the level of my desire for it to be stopped. I realized I was being taken in by the delivery and being hooked into the narrative, this is good writing. But I also wondered if this maybe is supposed to carry over into reality. Now bear with me here for a second. Often the horrible tragedies of this world make us call out for God, like with 9/11. We see human suffering and we want justice. We see human pain and we pain ourselves, this is a good human response. Empathy.

But sometimes we see the harshness in the world and instead of desiring a hero we desire an explanation.
In humility we desire help, accountability, we look for a hero. In pride we want vengeance and an explanation that satisfies our demands.

Now God does not want chaos to rule the land and for us to simply wait out evil, this is not the message. This is why he left governments in control, to curb sin. Romans 13 tells us this. But this desire and even demand for an explanation drives us to the point of compounding the offense. When we cannot rest in the deliverance we rend in the reasons why. We tend to harden our hearts and lose hope.

But the Christian response is supposed to drive us to him and realize that he will do justice. God will repay all evil. God does not wink at sin. Vengeance is indeed his. But our level of rest and trust in him reveals our level of discomfort in the waiting, our annoyance at the lack of salvation. It does not in any way alleviate the suffering but my demands of reasons will be laid to rest if I truly believed that God was just. 

This is what the prophet Jonah struggled with in a reverse way.  As much as God is just, he is also a forgiving God.  Jonah did not want to preach repentance to the Ninevites because he wanted them to be judged. Even though vengeance is God's, God had a different desire for them, he wanted to offer repentance.

As much as it may comfort me that justice will come, God may want to show mercy. Ouch!  Do I want blood more than God does? This is that harsh reality that I am not God. I have to realize that I am not supposed relent to God's justice because he will get them in the end, but because he is just and good he will always administer just and true judgment. In other words if someone will repent who am I to demand that they be denied mercy? 

This is the reality of our world. It is a harsh place. It is meant to point us to a savior, it is meant to show us that we need God. The degree that we can come to terms with that is the degree we have accepted him as Lord.  That is not to say that all suffering is merely an object lessen, but it does contain one if we are able and willing to see it. The world contains evil because of mankind's fall into sin. These are the consequences. It is not because God doesn't love or doesn't have enough power but that this is the reality of living apart from God which we chose. This is the quality of life we continue to choose. As much as we say we don't like it God agrees and says "Come away with me.

I have always had little compassion for kidnapers. One of the recent episodes of Daredevil was about a kidnapping. I have no room in my heart for this. It strikes me as the most vile unforgivable sin. To steal a person from their home and victimize them into fear and leave the rest in constant fear and worry and pain is just so emotionally horrible to me. It pains me and makes me cry our for justice. The show offered a hero and my pain was satiated.

But life does not always offer a hero as our stories do. A masked man does not show up and take away the evil and punish injustice. We get to read about it on the internet. We get to watch in on TV and we get to experience it in out communities. Where are the heroes? I think this is why the movie Boondock Saints (1999) was such a cult classic, why it became so popular. "Maybe someone should just kill them all?"  This is our temptation.  If we can just get rid of evil people we would feel better. But does simply getting rid of evil repair the reason for it?  The reason for evil is that man's relationship with God is broken.

But our relationship with sin is so ingrained that evil begins to conjure desire for reasons rather than heroes. I should desire a time when wrongs are righted. I should be trusting in the one who will act justly whether with judgment or mercy. As a Christian I should rest in what Paul says from Acts 17.

In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. ³¹ For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

A Christian should never lament that there is no justice. This is to say there is no God. God will come again and he will render judgment. I do not need to worry about anyone getting away with anything, no matter how long ago it happened, or how the system worked or failed to serve justice. God will be just and he will balance the books. 

But do I believe that? As a Christian am I overly wrought with worry and overly distraught with the lack of justice? Do I scream at the evil in the world as a non believer does? Do I scream at the injustice in Washington as a non believer does? Do I really believe that things are so far out of God hands that nothing can be done? 

It is one thing to pain over tragedy it is another to harden our hearts because justice is never done. As the Bible says "Be angry but do not sin."

Justice is coming, a hero is on the way. All those who thought they got away with it. All those who we wonder if they got away with it. All those who still cause death and destruction. All those travesties that we read about and don't. All the victims we know about and don't. All the times we have to stop watching, stop reading, and stop listening because it is just too overwhelming. All the unchecked evil will give account. This is the Christian worldview. 

And when he comes he will stand on the Mount of Olives they will see him, him who was pierced for our sins and killed for our injustice. The world will bend the knee and every mouth will be stopped and every mouth will confess that he is Lord either willingly or not. 

I don't have to grasp at answers. I don't have to worry about injustice. I can rest in my Hero. 

thanks

The Eagles Come at the End

I recently watched the third part of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.

At the end of the movie the Eagles show up and decimate the Uruk forces.  In the same way the Eagles show up at the end of the Lord of Rings to save the day.

I have always thought "Why didn't they just show up earlier and save everyone a lot of pain and suffering?" Or "Why didn't Frodo and Sam just ride them to Mount Doom in the first place?" 

Aside from trying to find plot holes in movies, we tend to have this type of thinking in our own lives.  Why doesn't God make this a little easier?

In similar thinking, after the last supper in the garden of Gethsemane, the disciples understandably try to save Jesus from the trouble of being captured and arrested.  Who wouldn't try to rescue Jesus from pain and torture?  Jesus responds to them with more understanding of the situation.
Mathew 26
⁵³ Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? ⁵⁴ But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” ⁵⁵ "

This verse always makes my the hair on the back of my neck stand up. In this statement is such a display of restrained power.

Jesus is saying look guys I am God, I can easily get out of this situation, but this situation is important to the biblical narrative. This is a pivotal moment in history that cannot simply be circumvented.  Jesus came not to simply show us a way out of problems but for us to encounter God himself.  This is a process, a journey.  Encountering God is not something that can be rushed.  It is not something that can simply be added to what we are doing at the moment.  It is a process.  

Developing a relationship with God takes time. This is one reason why we are all not immediately carried away to be with God the moment of conversion.  This is also why deliverance doesn't always immediately arrive. Of course God could do something in this situation but he must have another plan in mind. Yielding to and waiting for his plan and not our own is one of the hardest parts of faith in God.

The solution may seem obvious to us but we do not have all the information. We think we can see the end result and we wonder why we can't just go over to it now.  It is like a solider trying to win a war by acting unilaterally. Soldiers are trained for battle and they act at the commands of officers. The commanding officers have the information and tell the soldiers where to go and what to accomplish next. The soldiers do not always see the big picture but have to deal with what is commanded of them.

With human nature we would naturally want to take the path of least resistance. We want the reward as quickly as possible.  We want the pain ended as soon as possible.  But stories are not told in this way or else there would be little to read.  Without a little adversity characters would not develop and grow. There would be no inspiration for the reader. No story to retell down through the ages. There wouldn't be anything to teach with the story or learn from the narrative or even reason to retell the experience.  People do not remember the routine and mundane.

God may have a relationship in mind that he is developing with me. God may have a journey planned that I need taking. The problem is it may not look like what we would like, or may take longer than we were hoping it would take.  

Isaiah 40:31
But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Maybe Tolkien had this verse in mind when writing about the eagles. Waiting on the Lord happens while we are on the path. It is as we walk, that the help comes so we won't grow faint. It is after we are already running that the strength is given to not become weary. Waiting is not idling. The eagles are a reward for our faithfulness it seems, not a way to get around problems.

So...plot hole, or plot device? 

As much as we may want it, if in the beginning the Eagles always showed up to make life easier, we would learn very little. It wood also make a crap movie.

thanks