A few weeks ago while watching the news, I saw a sobering item appear on the crawl: ‘OJ Simpson beaten in prison.’ While the report was later revealed to be false, I have to confess that seeing it, I felt a measure of satisfaction, much as I had when Simpson was arrested for robbery some years earlier. Both occasions granted me a sense of justice, a comfort that no matter how events in the world play out, what goes around really does, ultimately, come around. Rather than feeling compassion toward Simpson for the suffering he’d endured at the hands of a prisonmate, or sadness at how his life has unfolded, I was relieved—relieved that his actions had finally caught up with him, relieved to see him paying in some way for what he’d done, relieved to find that he couldn’t truly get away with murder, even if he’d escaped the more severe consequences that I believed he truly deserved.
But Paul’s letter to the Romans stands as a rebuke to my attitude. Like many Christians, I’ve read it many times and have been fairly certain I understood the theological teaching that we are justified by faith and not by works. I was pretty sure that I “got” the concept—that none of us is blameless, that we need a perfect Savior, that the only way we are made clean and holy before the Father is by the grace, mercy, and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. But my fixation on justice (or my interpretation of it anyway) is evidence that I hadn’t completely grasped the larger truth: that God, in His compassion for us, doesn’t give us what we deserve. He gives us what we need, if only we’ll trust in Him.
Paul reminds me that inasmuch as Abraham was called to be the father of the Jewish nation, not to mention the father of all believers, even he was far from perfect, particularly when standing before a holy God. Abraham displayed courage and obedience (Gen. 12:1-7, Gen. 14:14-24). On other occasions he demonstrated doubt and faithlessness (Gen. 12:10-20, Gen. 16:1-6). But it was neither his acts of obedience nor his shortcomings that God counted when regarding Abraham a righteous man—it was his willingness to believe in God and all that He promised (Gen. 15:1-6). God called Abraham righteous years before he called him to circumcision; circumcision was simply the outward manifestation of his belief.
It’s significant that Paul, of all people, champions this teaching. By his own account (Phil. 3:4-6), if anyone could feel they were justified according to the law, it would be him. He was a self-described ‘Hebrew of Hebrews’: he’d been circumcised on the eighth day, he was of the tribe of Benjamin, and he was a Pharisee, the order of Jewish adherents who strove to follow the law so closely as to be in a constant state of purity. What’s more, while Paul was from Tarsus, one of the most prosperous and prestigious cities in the Roman empire, he was raised in Jerusalem and studied under Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), the grandson of Hillel, one of the most famous rabbis of all time. Paul’s zeal for the law was so great, he viewed Christ’s followers as blasphemers and persecuted them, even to their death.
But on his way to Damascus (Acts 9:1-9), God appeared to him saying, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.’ For all his adherence to the law, it had led him to persecute God Himself. Despite his accomplishments and pedigree, Paul would later call himself the least of the apostles (1 Cor. 15:9) and acknowledge that only the grace of Christ had saved him.
So as we enter Lent and prepare to celebrate Easter, I’m moved by the fact that God doesn’t appear to be nearly as preoccupied with justice as I’ve been. When I stand before him, he doesn’t catalog my flaws and misdeeds (not even the really, really ugly ones). Instead, he looks at me with unspeakable tenderness. He’s able to see beyond my actions to the struggles that drive them. He wants to attend to my healing, not to my punishment, and he extended that grace to me long before I made any outward demonstration of faith.
Mark Fuhrman, the detective who investigated the OJ Simpson case, was recently interviewed by Oprah Winfrey. Toward the end of the interview, Oprah asked him what he would say to Simpson today, if he could interview him. Fuhrman’s reply was surprising. He told Oprah the first thing he’d say would be, “‘I know you didn’t mean to kill two people and I know you didn’t go there for that.” He then said he’d want to find out what happened, and how Simpson got caught up in the events of that evening.
Over the years, I’ve had mixed feelings about Fuhrman’s own character and actions. But whatever I think of him, I’m humbled by the fact that this person, who knows far more about the case than I ever will, whose life has been forever changed by it, and who has far more right to comment on it than I, could have such a thoughtful and compassionate answer. As horrific as he believes Simpson’s actions to have been, he’s not blinded by his desire for justice. He can see beyond the actions through to the pain and pathology that must have driven them.
Throughout the Bible, we encounter a God who not only sees and understands our pathology, but who wants to heal it. His promise is that while we can never earn salvation through works of the flesh, good works will result as the natural outpouring of our salvation by faith. As I allow God to transform my heart, I’m not only freed to become the person He intended me to be. I can begin to truly see others not with a judging eye, but with the grace and compassion that’s been shown to me. What’s more, as I grasp my own brokenness and healing, I have the amazing chance to play a part in God’s work, and to be used by Him to help others experience that same forgiveness and peace. May God heal us all.
—Joanna Fuller
No comments:
Post a Comment