Judge Jesus
Judgment Day has, in a way, already happened for you!
There are few pleasures greater in life than watching someone get what’s coming to him. We have a built-in sense of right and wrong, and feel a thrill when justice is done. You loved it when your mom stuck it to your brother, when your teacher yelled at the class bully, when your camp counselor tore into the troublemakers, and admit it ... you love it now when a cop pulls over the car that just shot past you at a recklessly high rate of speed.
One of the best spots for catching good, stern, tongue-lashing lectures today is the bench of lower court TV judges – these guys, and gals, can lay into punks and deadbeats like a mad dean of students on a caffeine high. That may explain the growing success of shows like Judge Judy and Judge Joe Brown. “When people listen to shenanigans, they want the bad guys to be given a tongue lashing. I do that,” says Judge Judy, the 56-year-old one-woman justice machine, a former New York judge. “You’re not going to misconstrue what I said. Why do I have to use polysyllabic explanations when a single syllable will do it? No. Wrong. If I have to use two – stupid.” An article last year in Newsweek magazine analyzes the shift in popularity from TV talk shows to TV court shows. “Station managers and media buyers scratch their heads, but one popular explanation is that court shows provide ‘resolution.’ A talk show raises issues, a court show settles them – sometimes with extreme prejudice.”
These judges are tough-talking, no-nonsense dispensers of judgment, intolerant of excuses or rationalizations. What has happened? Judgment is supposed to be out of style! We’re being brainwashed in schools, churches, and workplaces to practice tolerance and acceptance, not criticism, rejection and punishment! But there’s a craving deep in each of us for what is right to be rewarded, and for what is wrong to be punished. That craving doesn’t only have eyes for others, either. It eats away at us personally. I realize every morning when I’m trying to get out of bed that the approaching day is going to another one in which I mess up, just like the last. I know that I deserve to be punished, and my deep-seated craving for justice yearns with a twisted desire for my sins to be judged with a no-nonsense, Judge Judy style torture. To put it simply, I want to be punished by God, abused by the devil and beat up by the world, because it gives me a sense of resolution, of fairness, of satisfying God.
Listen well, craver of justice. Judge Jesus has this to say about such a sick idea, “No payment is ever enough” (Psalm 49:8). Try to live by the law and you’ll die by the law. “All who rely on observing the law are under a curse ... You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace” (Galatians 5:4, 3:10). Sorry, but you can’t be punished enough. Yes, you’re that terrible of a sinner. Welcome to the world of Martin Luther. He inflicted himself with wounds. He suffered through fasts and scratched himself with sackcloth, but it was never enough. But then he found that his answer to a life of peace and satisfaction wasn’t justice but Jesus. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).
Judge Jesus presides over your earthly life and eternal hope. He sits on the bench and speaks not law, but “grace and truth.” He came not to condemn the world but to save the world. He does so by having satisfied that sense of justice deep in your soul and woven into God’s own being; he satisfied the just sentence for your sins by suffering hell and dying “for us.” Don’t you get it? Judgment Day has, in a way, already happened for you! Your sins have been cursed and punished in history by the very one who will pronounce the verdict of righteousness for you in the Last Day. You will be separated from any evil and wickedness then, and you are spared of any just punishment now. Silence your inner cry for justice with the no-nonsense promises of Judge Jesus. The deed is done. Through him, God is satisfied with you. You’re justified.
Steve Winger, a college student from Lubbock, Texas, writes about his last test -- a final in a logic class known for its difficult exams. “To help us on our test, the professor told us we could bring as much information to the exam as we could fit on a piece of notebook paper. Most students crammed as many facts as possible on their 81/2 x 11-inch sheet of paper. But one student walked into class, put a piece of notebook paper on the floor, and had an advanced logic student stand on the paper. The advanced logic student [stood there and] told him everything he needed to know. He was the only student to receive an ‘A.’” Jesus stands in for you. Fit him into your life today and forever.
PRAYER: I’m glad, Savior Jesus, that you are my judge. I’m glad, heavenly Father, that you are my maker. I’m glad, Holy Comforter and Counselor, that you are my truth. Amen.