I really like Batman. Love how he shows up in Gotham City and kapow, blam, he’s just tossing bad guys around and righting all the wrongs. That’s what most of us want when we think of “justice,” a tall, dark superhero who shows up in the nick of time and punches out the bad guys. That definition of “justice” definitely contains elements of vengeance, although it is righteous vengeance.

That is why I am over here gleefully reading words like “kapow” and “blam” and they just makes my little heart sing. I don’t actually desire “justice,” I want to put the bad guys on a trebuchet and launch them into outer space. I want the whole world to see this behavior and hear a great big “No.” I want order restored. I want consequences for lawlessness.

Tragically we must leave the fantasy realm and return to the grown up world. The grown up world is complex, there are higher levels of morality at play, there are bothersome things like integrity and the rule of law. There is wisdom and human experience, there are commitments to “never again” and to serve a higher standard. There is an understanding that “their rights” could one day be your rights. “We hold these truths to be self evident, all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..”

There’s a greater good at play here, a set of ethics and values that are far more important than our desires for revenge.

I’m going to say something a bit divisive, but the entire Democrat party and the left is completely excluded from this conversation of mine. I survived some serious abuse during COVID, rationalized and justified by such people. My civil rights went right out the window. The rule of law was flushed down the toilet. People could camp out on the street, set fires and riot, but I was in danger of arrest for not wearing a mask or for sneaking into church. I am simply no longer interested in listening to lectures from such people. They are disqualified.

I only wish to speak to people who are opposed to cooking meth, building pipe bombs, setting fires, stealing taxpayer money, assaulting law enforcement, and behaving in a completely lawless manner.

Jesus taught us some really valuable things about justice and the law. Notice how He says,  “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” There was nothing lawless about Jesus. He did not come to overthrow the law or to circumvent the system. He made it quite clear when He said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” 

In a spiritual context, He changed everything it is just that He has a long range goal that will carry on down through the centuries, rather than indulging in the short lived and temporary satisfaction of tossing some Romans on a trebuchet and launching them across the globe.

Jesus was never a social justice warrior nor was He an immigrant, so let’s just dump those two lies right now. Egypt was under Roman rule at the time. Jesus fled to Egypt like one might flee to Texas.

However, He was not a pacifist. He flat out said, “But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.” I’ve just about had it with the constant messages about how Christians are supposed to just be doormats and happily martyr themselves. Jesus Himself fled to Egypt, He snuck out of crowds, He slipped away. He laid down His life for us, but it was on His time schedule, and not His enemies.

Ecclesiastes tells us there is a time for everything, “a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”

Sometimes you have to fight back, but you have to fight back right. Justice doesn’t look like a made for TV movie or an old western. Might does not make right. The Bible says, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” It’s easy to get so eager to right the world’s wrongs that we don’t make space for God.

God’s justice is better than ours, bigger than ours, far more profound than ours, and sometimes restorative rather than retributive. Ask Jonah, he was tasked with bringing God’s restorative justice to some people he didn’t like very much. God’s ways are not our ways.

I’ve known a fair amount of injustice in my life. I don’t say any of these things lightly. I’ve actually spent years delving into these matters with God on a very personal level. I am familiar with despair and frustration. Our legal system in America is probably one of the best the world has ever seen and yet it is woefully inadequate. There is simply no amount of “justice” that can compensate for the losses, that can replace the need to grieve, that can fix what is stolen.

Don’t beat up on our legal system, don’t give way to cynicism, don’t sink into despair. That’s actually a psy/op called “demoralization.” What always happens is that half the people will be busy trying to tear down the system and the other half will be busy beating up on the system for being so ineffective.

Don’t do your enemy’s job for them.