The Cross and Scotty McMillan

Not a week has passed since three year-old Scotty McMillan was pronounced dead. Many of us were calling down the curses of hell on three people responsible for the systematic torture of a little boy.  Many moms of young children are still shaken by the reports of a mother who would watch and laugh while her boyfriend beat her child.  It grates against the grain of a mother—and invokes her God-given call to protect with all of her being.

The incident, however, will soon vanish from our thoughts in the flurry of information overload. But the memory of this little boy will not vanish from the mind of God—of this we are all as certain as we are the existence of hell and our wish that his perpetrators be cast into it.  

But are these thoughts God’s thoughts?  I’m not speaking of whether the offenders can be forgiven. Thank God it’s not our business. To hope for forgiveness for them feels like a betrayal to all that is good. But to deny the possibility of forgiveness is to say that Scotty’s murder is somehow more powerful than Jesus’ Blood and forgiveness.  If that is true, then we are all lost. It may be that how these events effect us, as far as we are concerned, has far more to do with our faith than with the fate of Scotty’s mother and boyfriend.

You and I have two options in the face of evil. Rage and curse or run to Jesus. As I think on Scotty and the unthinkable alleged negligence of the woman who was supposed to protect him, all I can do is think about how incredibly grateful I am for Christ, who leads me out of my own darkness.

Paul wrote that I was an enemy of God and that I was darkness myself.  I didn’t kill a child. But I killed the Lord of Lords. He conquered my act of murder and told me to follow. No matter how horrible the things I hear and judge—in the news, in my relationships, in myself, following the path of the cross must govern what I say and what I think.  It is not my sense of justice or mercy that must prevail within me—but the intensity of justice and mercy clashing at the cross. Grace must govern my steps and my voice in following the Savior. 

Grace does not mean there is no outrage over injustice. Grace does not mean we look the other way. But grace recognizes that I stand where I do not because I am better than someone I deem to be a monster—grace remembers that my Savior died for me—and there is no offense that is worse than the offense of the Cross, my offense, which was forgiven and which produced unspeakable joy.

There is freedom from hate in that perspective--a freedom to trust that He is just and He is merciful and He will prevail—even in our tears and confusion.