Recent reading on MLK Day reminded me of the hope that permeated his life. No matter how dark the night, he always had hope that God would ultimately change people’s hearts. Dr. King’s hope echoed the hope of the Antebellum enslaved who cried out hopeful of God’s deliverance, as Israelite slaves had thousands of years before cried out in hope that God would release them from Pharaoh’s awful grasp.
It occurs to me that the pursuit of justice, if done biblically, must be bound to hope. That “this world with evils filled should threaten to undo us” can easily overwhelm the one who seeks to right wrongs in witness of the righteousness of God is without question. The sheer weight of evil, the universality of wrong can cause us to focus on the darkness rather than the light. No matter how flickery the flame or attempts of principalities and powers to smother it, it is light that gives hope. Darkness offers only injustice.
Justice must be bound to hope. Without hope the pursuit of justice too easily leads to cynicism, the flip side of the one who says justice can’t even be attained so it shouldn’t be pursued. Whether active cynicism or passive cynicism, it is a corrosive, eating away at the heart of its host.
The justice seeker who becomes cynical finds him or herself seeing only evil so that even good results are hard to see and victories difficult to celebrate. The ones who sees no need to pursue justice between the cross and the Second Coming might pillow their heads in ease, but the oppressed and suffering yet cry out for relief. When God sends such relief, it will hardly be from the comfort of those who see no need for it.
The justice-seeking Christian should remember that justice might come through you but it does not depend on you. If, at the moment of possible annihilation of the Jewish people, Mordecai could say to Esther, “If you don’t step up, God will deliver his people another way,” do not be deceived into thinking you are somehow filling bigger shoes than hers. It always depends on the Judge of all the earth to set things right; his subjects never bear the total burden.
As the prophet Isaiah foretold,
Then a shoot will grow from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him — a Spirit of wisdom and understanding, a Spirit of counsel and strength a Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. His delight will be in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, he will not execute justice by what he hears with his ears, but he will judge the poor righteously and execute justice for the oppressed of the land. He will strike the land with a scepter from his mouth, and he will kill the wicked with a command from his lips. Righteousness will be a belt around his hips; faithfulness will be a belt around his waist. The wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat. The calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf will be together, and a child will lead them. The cow and the bear will graze, their young ones will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like cattle. An infant will play beside the cobra’s pit, and a toddler will put his hand into a snake’s den. They will not harm or destroy each other on my entire holy mountain, for the land will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is filled with water. (11:1–9, CSB)
Justice asserts that things are not right, but can and should be made right, and pursues to that end. Hope fixes that pursuit to the one who will make all things new. It is hope in God—not government—that keeps the head of justice above water. And hope accepts that God might use individuals, governments, non-profits, institutions, or you and me as the upward-sloping bottom that leads justice to the dry land of God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven.
fides quaerens intellectum
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