Advent Day 23

Monday, December 23rd

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? —Micah 6:8 (NRSV)

For lawyer Bryan Stevenson, doing justice has meant spending a lifetime witnessing injustice and working to reverse it. He continues to fight a system that treats those who are rich and guilty better than those who are poor and innocent. He is compelled by the story in John 8 when Jesus stands in front of a woman about to be stoned. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” He says (John 8:7, NIV). The convicted men drop their rocks and walk away one at a time. Bryan says this instance reminds him not to be a stone thrower but a stone catcher.

Advent ushers in the promise of justice. But perhaps it is not justice as the world sees, but justice as Jesus defines it. It’s a type of Justice that is inherently linked to mercy. To paraphrase theologian G.K. Chesterton, the innocent call for justice, and the guilty call for mercy. We can only know what justice looks like when we look to Jesus, the ultimate stone catcher. The one who calls us to forgiveness, embodies mercy on the cross, challenges us to turn the world upside-down (or maybe right-side up) this Christmas, to see people not as the worst thing they’ve ever done but through a lens of love and grace.

O God, help me become a worthy stone catcher. Amen.SV)