August 8

Ezekiel 7
Is there beauty in justice? If one turned to pop culture, one would definitely get the answer, “Yes.” Last night I watched the most recent True Grit. If you haven’t seen it or read it, it is about a 14-year-old girl on a journey to bring the murderer of her father to justice. Although she hired a U.S. Marshall to help her, ultimately she becomes the executioner with the aid of the Marshal and a Texas Ranger. Part of the ‘fun’ of the movie is that she obtains the justice which she so deeply desires. Everyone wants the ‘bad guys’ to be brought to justice. Even one of the ending scenes where she meets an old Frank James who rudely refuses to stand in her presence, she tells him, “Keep your seat, Trash.” She has a way of demanding and getting justice. We all have a sense of a time past when we did not get justice, and we want justice served. We also think that the ‘bad guys’ are much worse than we are; therefore, they deserve our retribution. There is beauty in justice; we sense it innately. The problem lies in that we never think it should be applied to us for we think we are never at fault.
Are not the people of Jerusalem a people just like us? Indeed they are. Maybe that is why many liberals like to use the justice of God found in this passage to make a supposed difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. The doom of Jerusalem is proclaimed to the exiles. Retribution in coming! We don’t like that message. It is not beautiful; it is painful. How can that be part of love? But if God is love and just at the same time, then the justice must somehow also be love. That is the beauty of the cross. It is both Divine justice and love in one beautiful act, or is it an ugly act? I’m uncomfortable with the destruction of Jerusalem in such a violent manner, but they had it coming.
I am uncomfortable with the cross, but I had it coming. Fortunately for me, I had a substitute. Fortunately for me, when I identify with the cross, justice is served against me. Fortunately for me, my substitute bore the justice due me. Fortunately for me, my substitute overcame the death that the executioner exacted upon Him. Fortunately for me, I live because my substitute lives. The cross is beautiful because of what it produced. The destruction of Jerusalem is beautiful because of what it produced. Is there beauty in justice? Yes. My Lord is beautiful. Indeed, we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john