(Stock Image – Canva)
By Jane Korvemaker
When I was about ten years old, I had a bright rainbow of suckers given to me. I was so excited. I really wanted my favourite flavour first (obviously the red), but – the only time I ever remember intentionally practicing this as a child – I was going to have just one a day and save the best for last.
I have a younger brother. He was also given some type of suitable candy. Being younger, he did not practice saving the best for last and he soon finished his. Since we had both been given treats suitable to each, this didn’t bother me. But it did bother him. Thus, he bothered my mum. And bothered her more. Repeatedly.
Its culmination occurred when I was down to my last two suckers, the hateful, dreaded, and deceptive black liquorice (which I was not planning on having at all, it was so detestable) and my beloved and long-waited-for red sucker. My brother had such an epic meltdown that my mum threw in the bucket and insisted that he have one of my suckers.
Against my protests, he was even allowed to choose which to take. I looked into my brother’s eyes, and he gave me that look. The one that says, ‘Ha! You’re the sucker. I can get whatever I want.’ And just like that, my beloved red sucker for which I had practiced patience and moderation was taken from me.
Friends, it was a dark day. The injustice of it made me brim with anger and malice. What hope was there? That which I cherished and waited for in my young heart had been crushed between the teeth of greed and manipulation.
Several decades later, I still mourn for the dashed hopes of that little girl. Injustice thwarted her desire to practice virtues. It felt so hopeless. What difference can faith make?
‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’ Mark 1:15
God invites us into relationship with him and to believe all he has revealed to us; our response is faith. It is a commitment to hope in God in the face of the consequences of sin and evil. Justice is no small matter.
At the end of my life, when death comes knocking at my door, justice will be served. Did I follow Jesus’ call to “repent, and believe the good news”? My eternity depends upon it.
The repentance Jesus calls for is a repentance of acting on our inclination to say ‘no’ to God’s saving plan, so often done in small ways. The malice that flowed from my anger at the injustice of the Red Sucker Incident is one such example. It did not build up God’s Kingdom. Our beliefs about justice can be so broken; Jesus asks us to embrace the Kingdom of God, his justice, and the way he reveals it.
And the characteristic of his Kingdom? His justice? Love and mercy.
How can we even begin to believe that love and mercy will solve all the issues? The truth is, I don’t know. But to be in Christ means that I have to try. When I appeal to God’s love and mercy in repentance, I receive the grace of forgiveness and reunion with God.
Love and mercy are often not met the same way on earth. The attempt to live out Jesus’ justice on earth frequently leaves us hurt and vulnerable. Vices sure seem sweet in response to injustice, but they’re like the deceptive black liquorice sucker: they end up sucking the joy out of us (apologies to black liquorice lovers).
We’re not immune to the same fate that Love and Mercy had while on earth – that of suffering: “or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4).
The cross without Jesus is unbearable. It is Jesus who makes living out love and mercy possible without turning to vices. We do not ignore injustice; Jesus spent his life seeking justice for the lowly, the outcasts, and the heavily burdened. We are meant to love and show mercy despite injustice, just as God has done for us. This is the good news: the person of Jesus Christ, love and mercy incarnate.
Truth be told, my own children exhibit injustice regularly; I’m sure they feel it is mutual. I face the same challenges, but now I know justice is love and mercy. And in Christ, I was made to do this.
Jane Korvemaker is a B.C. transplant who lives in Saskatoon with her husband, three children, and mischievous cat. She holds a Certificate in Culinary Arts, Bachelor of Theology, Certificate in Youth Ministry Studies, and is a Level Two Catechist in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. She hopes to one day find the perfect pairing of bacon, beer, and Balthasar. She semi-regularly writes at ajk2.ca
