JUSTICE

This coming Sunday, September 15, will be the 50th anniversary of the tragic 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church by members of the Ku Klux Klan in Birmingham, Alabama. Four young girls (Denise McNair, 11; Carole Robertson, Addie Mae Collins and Cynthia Wesley, 14 all lost their lives in this bombing and it took years for those responsible to be brought to justice. Robert Chambliss, whose nickname was “Dynamite Bob”, was arrested and convicted in 1977 but the case sat dormant for another 20 years until the others responsible for carrying out this heinous act were finally arrested, tried and convicted. 

All of this started me thinking about justice. 

Miriam-Webster defines justice as - “the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments” 

The Bible has a lot to say about justice, there is verse after verse. Leviticus 19:15 -Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly. Deuteronomy 16:20 - Follow justice and justice alone, so that you may live and possess the land the LORD your God is giving you. My favorite verse, Micah 6:8 states: He has told you, O mortal, what is good;and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness,and to walk humbly with your God. 

What I wonder is if justice was truly served in this case? 

It seems to me that it was definitely not swift as we are often told justice can and should be. Those girls, whose lives were cut so short, surely would not think that justice was served and I would guess neither would their families. These men went on to have many more years of life and in fact one other suspect, Hermann Cash died in 1994 without ever being charged. I struggle with the idea of justice and judgment. 

I know that God is the only real judge but there are times when I want justice now.  And in my world, I am both judge and jury. I often must remind myself that God sees the bigger picture or this life and that my sense of what is right and wrong and who deserves what punishment is skewed by my own limited and biased view of the world.  Although I believe in the final redemption of all souls, there is a part of me that so wishes for eternal damnation for those I view as unredeemable. 

Thankfully, God is the final and eternal judge and in the end I trust, that in Him, justice truly is served.