Justice and the Resurrection
Rachel is an alumni from the University of Minnesota where she studied Dance and English, and started following Jesus her freshman year. Currently, she is working with a ministry located in France and passionate about theology, biblical literacy, social justice, anti human trafficking, art, writing, ballet, and all sorts of French pastries. She loves getting to know people and their stories, and firmly believes that every single person has a story worth telling. Through writing and art, we can experience glimpses of a persons experience, and that is the key motivator in her studies of both dance and English. her hope is to use these passions to serve God throughout the entirety of her life.
How do we experience the freedom and the hope of the resurrection in a world that is so overrun by injustice? How do we trust in the completion of justice by Christ on the cross while we walk through the brokenness of the world? How is there a God to whom we declare, Holy, Holy, Holy while facing the depth of our own pain? This Easter season, I have been reflecting on the justice of God, and how a God marked by perfect justice is the only one that allows the resurrection to make sense.
My personal decision to follow Christ came a little more than four years ago, during my freshman year of college. While I had spent my childhood attending youth groups off and on, and grew up in a family that occasionally attended church, I had a long list of questions for God. I was well accustomed to the church message that I would hear on our family field trip to church on Easter– God is merciful and loving. His Son lived and died and rose again to give us new life in Him, if we just choose to accept Him into our lives. This is the truth, and I hope that the sweetness of this message is never again lost to me, but it was not satisfying to me on its own. My thirst for answered questions was not quenched through this message.
But what about the wrong in the world? What about the pain that still remains when you wake up on the Monday after Easter is over? What about the news articles that flood in new and new and new with a ceaseless stream of tragedy? Where does God’s great gift of mercy and love fit into that reality? I felt a certain naivety was required to fully trust in the God of an unjust world and call Him good. Clearly, however, I now write this as a Christian, devoted to following Christ for the duration of my life. The building up of one's faith is like a puzzle; as we come before the Lord asking questions, no matter how raw or vulnerable, we are able to fit the pieces into one another, building up stronger and stronger trust. God is not afraid of these questions. He patiently walked with me through all my dizzying thoughts around justice, until finally the piece got put into place. I found peace in the truth that the Gospel is the best display of justice mankind has ever seen, and that Jesus’ death on the cross is the biggest injustice the world has faced.
In navigating the question, ”why do bad things (injustices) happen to good people?”, we have to look at the place of sin in the world. Most people who are familiar with Christianity are familiar with a “God loves you” brand of messaging. It’s not wrong, but it makes many people skeptical– what does it mean for God to love us, especially in the context where people harm us, even those bearing the name of Christ? We see it in the war in Ukraine. We see it in the millions of people trafficked. We see it in abusive church systems. How do we see a loving God through that, and how can we see His justice?
We see God’s love for us in His creation. He does not force anyone to love Him-- even though He is the Creator of all things, He gives each person a choice in following Him, and will never make us follow Him like robots. Adam and Eve chose the path of sin first in Genesis 3, and afterwards, the Bible documents a continual outpouring of sin. Our choices fragmented our relationship with the one Holy God, creating eternal separation. He gave us freedom, and we chose greed, violence, and hatred. As God continues to walk alongside the Israelites throughout the Old Testament, they continue to move away from Him, away from His commandments, and away from His call for justice.
People often ask how God can stand by as we sin, but God’s punishment for sin is severe. From one “tiny” sin, we experience complete division from God. That does not sound like a God who is unconcerned with sin or our pain. God will, unwaveringly, account for every sin, but His love is so great for us that He not only provided choice in following Him, but He also offers us a way to return to Him when we choose incorrectly, without sacrificing Holy justice. When Jesus died on the cross, he was not dismissing sin. He was personally paying for every single sin committed by anyone, for all time. There was not a single sin unaccounted for. Once again we are given choice: by choosing to follow Jesus, our slates are wiped clean. This isn’t because God is disregarding wrongdoing, but rather because in His perfect justice and the depth of His care for us, He Himself paid for our sins. God could program us to “love” and follow Him blindly, never to make mistakes, but that would not display real love, from us or from God. An unjust God would let our sins go by without punishment.
Because of this, we know that every sin is either paid for on the cross, or will be paid for by the person who committed it. God will demand justice, and it will be executed one of two ways and we have a choice in which way it goes. Jesus was the only person who lived a life without sin, that is, without ever doing harm, thinking ill of another, giving into His temptations, being jealous, or short-tempered. He defied cultural norms in order to protect women, those who were outcast, reconcile racial and cultural divisions, and to break down the legalism within the religious system that existed. And He was put to death on a cross, while only contributing good during His entire time living on earth. Tell me that this would not cause outrage if it were today? This is injustice. Jesus experienced it to ensure that sin would be paid for to completion. He rose again to give us hope that sin and evil and injustice will not have the final word.
We still experience sin on earth because it is broken and fallen. Our hope is in the fact that God is just, demands an account for each sin, and is unrelenting in enforcing the severity of it. Our hope is that there is another way for us. Our hope is in the promise that there will be a new heaven and a new earth and that there will no longer be tears or mourning. God invites us into this world, yearns for us to be in it with Him, and provides a life without suffering or grief over what we experienced on earth because He loves us. He simply will not make us follow him against our will. And He can not allow us to enter heaven and the new earth without each and every sin paid for.
The tragedies on earth will continue. I will open my New York Times app tomorrow and the next day and the next and face a new onslaught of articles articulating the pain that is being inflicted all over the word. We will continue to face suffering in our own lives on earth. We will, during the time we are given on earth, have to navigate how to support others and fight against injustice and love people in their pain. We will have to learn how to bear one another's burdens, and point people to the true Comforter. The message of Easter that I bring to you today is that God is loving and merciful, and we see these displayed perfectly in Jesus’ death on the cross. But He is also perfectly just, holy, and all-powerful. Jesus describes Himself as gentle and lowly in spirit, but we can not also forget that God is fierce. His justice is the source of hope within the resurrection. God’s justice repairs relationships, and mends what appears to be unmendable. It is the promise we have as we continue to face the injustices of the world, and look toward Heaven.
Let God’s justice be a reminder of His love and His mercy for you today. Let it bring you closer to Him, and motivate you to stand with others. Let it bring new life to your understanding of the resurrection. The Gospel is a miracle. I pray that you can stand in it during every season.
- Rachel
