It’s twenty minutes before midnight. Our city is covered in a blanket of snow, something I have been hoping for just like I do every year. I am not quite sure why, but the rain and the snow have always brought me such joy. And peace. But tonight … tonight is different.
Tonight I cannot stop thinking about the terrible injustice that plagues our broken world. I served as a juror for a very difficult case – one that detailed years of sexual abuse inflicted on a young girl whose innocence was stolen by a man who was a leader in her church. She was attacked on the stand and by a few in the jury room. She was blamed. Her mother was blamed. In the jury room, his wife was also blamed. The therapy that has helped her to process this horrific trauma was mocked and she was accused of making it all up.
For what? So that she could have her name dragged through the mud in the small town and church community that she once called home? No, like many victims, she sacrificed her new, peaceful life far away from the trauma that no one should ever have to endure to do everything she can to keep more children from being victimized. Yet, for reasons that defy logic, 2 of 12 jurors would not vote to convict. We ended in a mistrial and justice was not served.
What grieves me the most is the church leaders who one after another took the stand to defend a man against accusations from a woman whom they have never taken the time to hear. Do they believe the claims they made? Perhaps. Or maybe it is another one of a long list of church coverups that involve sacrificing women and children on the altars they build in their own image – altars where so-called “men of God” stand on pedestals that Jesus Himself would knock down if He were here in the flesh.
Justice – it is the foundation of God’s throne, so why isn’t it the foundation of so many churches that claim to represent Him? I will never understand but I know that one day, there will be justice for everyone who has faced the corruption and wickedness that is far too common among those who relentlessly take His name in vain. In the meantime, I cling to the character of my Jesus who spent his earthly life lifting up the oppressed and giving honor and dignity to those the religious leaders cast aside. That is who He is. That is who He forever will remain.
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