Not guilty.
The defense is relieved.
The prosecution is stunned.
There’s simultaneous joy and sadness on both sides of the table. There was no mistrial, no hung jury. There are those who agree and those who disagree, but at the end of the day, the verdict is final. Case closed.
I know her name – Casey Anthony. I know the accusation – accused of murdering her own child. That’s the extent of my knowledge. I know the world has been glued to the details of her murder trial, but for me, life went on. However, I was stopped a couple of days ago as the facebook community sounded off about the verdict in this trial.
It’s always a tough pill to swallow when someone who appears to have committed one of our “major” sins seems to go free. In these moments it becomes glaringly obvious that we’ve attempted to position our God on our level and expect Him to judge sin according to the grade levels or categories we’ve assigned it here on earth. Lies are little sins. Murder is big. Murdering one’s child is HUGE! I’m right in there with you. Those categories feel good to me, too. They may feel good, but are they of God?
As I perused the many Facebook rantings, I was reminded of the story of the adulterous woman in John chapter 8. Scripture specifically notes that this woman was “caught in adultery, in the very act..”. Now my first thought was who was the nasty little peeping tom who caught her “in the very act”, but I digress. For a moment, it seemed Jesus was almost ignoring the scribes and Pharisees – the woman’s accusers. Instead of addressing them immediately, he stooped down and began writing with His finger in the sand. Does anyone other than me wonder what He wrote in the sand that day? Jesus finally responded to them, simply saying, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Wow!
That’s all! But we KNOW she’s guilty, and you’re going to turn the telescope back on us and let her go free. Wow!
Sometimes I wonder if situations like the Casey Anthony trial are God’s little reminders to us. Our justice is so flawed. We have states where innocent men have been incarcerated for years for crimes they are later proven innocent of. Then there are those who we probably all know or believe are guilty who walk away free. God’s little reminders…. His justice is the only justice that is perfect, without flaws, and never fails. It will always prevail.
In closing, I also took a moment to reflect on my countless moments of guilt – the “little” sins and the “not so little” ones. How many times should I have been found guilty and sentenced according to my crime, but I wasn’t. How is it that if I told you all I’ve done you wouldn’t believe me? My “jury” found me, the defendant, not guilty. Christ took the blame for my sin at Calvary, and His blood washed me whiter than snow. Is that fair?
I don’t know whether or not that woman is truly guilty of killing her child. If she isn’t, I’m thankful she didn’t become another statistic. If she is, I know the true Judge and Jury, and He will ultimately decide her fate as well as the fate of us all. I, also, don’t know if she knows Jesus Christ. Today, I think I will make that my first concern for her. I hope that if she doesn’t know Him that she comes to know Him through this experience. That can happen if we pray for her. In our eyes and on our earth we are light years different from her. however, in the eyes of the Lord, we are not so different from her at all. Consider that for a moment. We may not have been accused of murder, but we have been exonerated from crimes, sins against our Savior, you and I both know we DID commit. We have gone free when we shouldn’t have.
How does that change your perspective today? How does it challenge your prayers?
Completely ME,