the weight of justice

The other day I read an article about the co-founder of Invisible Children and star of the KONY 2012 video being arrested for some disturbing public behaviors. The first thing that came to mind was, "Only Jesus is Just." As you probably have seen, the awareness campaign video went viral weeks ago. My children and I watched it together. I had been made aware of the violence in Uganda about 10 years ago through some prayer meetings. I watched the video I.C. had produced about child soldiers years ago. I remember the night I heard of the persecution, where I was sitting where I heard it and how I felt as the jagged pill went down. My world was so self-absorbed (still working on that) and I needed a good dislodging. I heard stories of how villages were ravaged, women were raped, water holes were poisoned, children were kidnapped. One story that I will never forget was an account of a nursing mother whose breasts were torn off so that her baby would die of starvation and every other child to come, for that matter. It marked me back then. I cried and cried, still cry when I think of this. I shared that story with my children that night. I saw the horror in their eyes, that this had been going on ever since I heard about it. Yes. And even before then. Hard to imagine what suffering in this measure is like when the worst of our suffering is usually financial or some physical affliction, and mostly as a consequence of our poor choices. Lord, have mercy on us.

After watching the video, the children and I prayed for the capture of all who did evil in Uganda, for comfort for the people, for protection for the persecuted church there and for revival to break forth through such things (and we know it has). I understand this much, that there is no justice outside of God. While He wants to put to an end to all evil (and He will one day) and while His heart breaks more than mine ever could for the trafficked, for the innocent slaughtered day in and day out, it is so much more than that. He longs for justice to come to the heart of every man through the mercy of the Cross. We prayed that Kony would come to a place of repentance, a saving knowledge of God and in turn, be used mightily of Him to undo all that had been done, to make straight all the crooked places he had helped to establish. God's will is for all men to be saved, for none to perish. He alone knows who will come into that saving grace and who will refuse but we always pray mercy because that is the Lord's heart posture over us.

When I read the article about the arrest, I was saddened. Saddened for this attractive, blue-eyed father and husband who had found himself in such a mess. I prayed for him, for his family. Surely the pressures of a 'global' justice movement took their toll. But, this is why one man cannot take on justice as if the government could rest on his shoulders. Even while so well intended (and I can relate to this part) justice is nothing that I can execute on the earth apart from the One who is Just and True working it through me. And the frightening thing about partnering with Jesus as a Just Judge is that He is also the Judge for us, for our crooked ways, for our sin, etc. If I cry out for justice it must be coupled with a mercy cry for my own self. Mercy and justice must always marry. I believe that is what may have happened with this man. Justice is so heavy that no man can carry it, no organization can shoulder it, no nation can uphold it but for the grace of God bearing the enormity of it. There is not justice without Jesus. He is Justice.