mercy vs. justice

I have been thinking about grace a lot lately. This concept kind of fascinates me, yet I only really began to consider it in college, when my busy lifestyle and studying for the MCAT started to interrupt time I wanted to be spending with friends, when my ‘sorrys’ became more frequent than my greetings, and when my sighs of disappointment in self replaced sighs of contentment. Now it’s Step time (like the MCAT on steroids) and the all too familiar feeling of a busy life has returned. The reason I am pondering grace these days is because I find myself requiring it more often.

Grace or justice? Mercy or true deserts?

I remember once having a conversation with my mom about forgiveness while we were in the kitchen snapping green beans. She used to make me do things like that around the kitchen: you know, snap green beans, dice stuff, crack the eggs…I am not sure if it was because she is bossy and liked having two sets of hands (heck, I do the same thing now…ask anyone who has stepped in my kitchen while I am cooking) or if she just liked having me there.  Anyway, this particular chat began to challenge my grasp on this theological principle of mercy when she tried to tell me that a man in prison could be forgiven and then end up in the same heaven as me. My heaven—where there were ice cream mountains and soulful hymns (I think I was about 8 years old at the time)?! I just could not fathom such insanity. I think she could tell I was developing some angst in trying to accept such a generous forgiveness, so she offered me a life-line. I remember going to the phone (the kind still attached to the wall by the miles of curly cord) and calling up my southern Baptist grandmother in Louisiana, thinking surely she would know. I also remember getting off the phone still disappointed, so I am fairly certain she agreed with my mom.

In his Orthodoxy, GK Chesterton propounds the interesting thought that children prefer justice while adults prefer mercy. Now, as an adult with 24 whole years of human life under my belt, I now could not agree more. I stand indebted to Christianity for dividing the crime from the criminal; a true acknowledgement of the justice that will be served makes the grace I am daily afforded all the more amazing.