The Weight of Justice

Reading this post on a blog I frequent, I stumbled into a consideration of justice.

If violence is the weight of justice, who can bear it?

When King David writes 'There is no one righteous- no not one,' he speaks of our righteousness before God. Our attempts fall woefully short. But we need not be condemned by the law of God, for the law written in our own hearts condemns us before He begins to speak. We contemplate rear-ending the Jetta that 'cuts us off' in the morning commute, but are indignant when we are given the finger for 'changing lanes too quickly' on our way home. We plot against the roommate who leaves his dishes in the sink, but drop our socks in the living room and forget about them.  For weeks.

Oh, we exult in the crushing of others' insolence, delight to see others 'put in their place'. Tell me friend, which place is that? And which place is yours?  How we delight both in their fall and in our comparative lift! How we love to see justice meted out, how it leaves us feeling superior! But were we to discover our hearts placed on the grand scale with which we weigh others, the weight of justice would be less delightful. It would be devastating. All our hearts would be crushed, tossed from their desks for their insolence and self-righteous hypocrisy.

We cannot pretend that insolence is innocence, for they are different things entirely. Neither, though, can we condemn it and walk free ourselves. If stones are to be thrown, we must stand with the insolent at the bottom of the hill awaiting the falling rock which we ourselves have demanded. Their place, and ours, are the same.

I believe that in the end the only Innocent One will cast the first stone, and the second. And I doubt that He will stop; there is enough insolence in my heart alone to warrant all the granite of the Appalachians. Unless we take shelter in a body already bruised, we will bear the bruising of justice ourselves. The weight of justice that we heap so quickly on others will be doubled and returned upon us- not because they deserve less, but because we deserve incomparably more. What iniquity we with fallen eyes can see in them pales before the Pharisaism of our hearts. We are shipwrights condemning each chip on any shoulder, ignoring the logs we carry from birth til death.

We must find a way to reconcile the demand for justice with our failure to live up to it. And we must find a compelling reason to show mercy when it is unwarranted, grace when it is undeserved. For there is no other kind of mercy, and no other kind of grace, and no other kind of hope for our world- certainly no other hope for ourselves.