Reading: Offenders - Justice and Love for Those Who Have Injured

Isaiah 53:12

Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. 

Matthew 5:23-25

Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison.

2 Corinthians 5:21

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Ephesians 5:8-10

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.

Colossians 2:13, 14

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.

Reflection

Jesus, by his incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, truly and fully identifies with both perpetrator and victim. On the cross, Jesus bears our responsibility as perpetrator as well as our trauma as victim. On the cross, Jesus saves both perpetrator and victim.

With this in mind, we will focus in this lesson on justice and love for those who have done wrong. How do God’s justice and love “meet and agree” for perpetrators of wrong-doing, crime, and harm? How is it that Jesus bears our responsibility as sinner and saves us? How do we, as those who have injured others, participate in Jesus’ redemptive efforts?

On the cross, Jesus bore the judgment we deserved. The New Testament refers to what Jesus did on our behalf in rich and various ways: an offering for sin as the Lamb of God; the substitute for us in our punishment; the perfectly obedient Son of God; the liberator rescuing us from the realm of darkness; the conqueror and captor of sin and death; the self-emptying servant; the lover of our souls; and more. All point to the mysterious but deep truth that Jesus, fully in keeping with God’s nature and purposes, took upon himself our sin and its consequences in order to reverse them completely and finally.

This means that there is full acknowledgment of sin and its consequences. No wrong-doer, no perpetrator of sin and crime, can evade or minimize what he or she has done.

We have many devices whereby we seek to avoid responsibility both within ourselves and before others. We blame our circumstances. We blame other people. We focus only on our own needs and desires. We harden our hearts to the feelings of others. In these and other ways we deny the reality of our wrongdoing, or we try to justify it. We excuse ourselves from blame.

The cross of Jesus does not permit us to rest in these devices. The cross condemns who we are and what we do when we rebel against God and his good order for others and for ourselves. At the same time, the cross rescues us from despair and hopelessness. No wrongdoer is beyond God’s forgiveness and love.

How do we, as those who commit wrong and thus injure others and ourselves, live in both the justice and the love of the cross? We do it through confession, repentance, amends and transformation.

A wrongdoer participates in God’s saving justice in Jesus by acknowledging his or her acts through confession. By renouncing in repentance similar behaviour in the future and taking steps to make it less likely that the wrongdoing will be repeated. Then the person engages in specific, concrete acts to take responsibility and to make amends with respect to the victim (e.g., through restitution or similar means).

Transformation requires that the wrongdoer participate in Jesus’ saving transaction by spiritually “dying and rising.” This occurs by accepting or receiving the sacrificial love of God in Jesus. The old self passes away; the new self begins to emerge. Transformation shows itself when the wrongdoer gains empathy for the victim of the offense. When the wrongdoer seeks to repair the damage to the victim. When the wrondoer determines to live in new ways.

Yet an individual cannot do these things alone. In the next lesson we will explore ways in which a community can assist by living out justice and love toward those who hurt and those who injure.

Used by permission - www.restorativejustice.org - a ministry of Prison Fellowship International