Mark Rogers

Last night I went to a funeral visitation. Now as a staff pastor in a large church, I go to quite a few funerals and visitations. But this one was like just a handfull of them that I’ve been to in that it was not for an adult. It was for a seventeen month old, angelic faced little girl. And this one was like none of the others of this kind, in that this little girl was murdered by the mother’s boyfriend who was watching the baby by himself. When the child wouldn’t stop crying he shook and banged her hard enough to cause massive head trauma which rendered her unconscious and ultimately killed her. No secret here. It’s been all over the local news. Today, he was being arraigned for murder.

Now you may think from the title of the blog, that “Wondering How” is being applied to how he could do that. But no, not this time. The wondering how was wondering how the baby’s grandfather managed to continue to talk to this young man during the time the ordeal of wondering if the little girl was going to survive was going on. The in between time where the man had not admitted what he had done as it became more obvious. And how this grandfather, after the man confessed to him, drove him to the police station where he was arrested, and attempted to witness to him. And how this grandfather could talk to the parents of the young man who killed his granddaughter and express his understanding of the loss of their son to his horrible act which will land him in prison for much of his adult life.

Wondering how? Simple. Christ, the hope of glory resident in this grandfather that gave him, in the middle of his grief, the strength, compassion and grace to love in the midst of a situation that seems impossible to love in. We go about our everyday lives and all of a sudden something like this hits us in the face and gives us a view into the very heart of Christ.

What will happen to this young man who did the terrible act that repulsed everybody that heard of it? If he does not repent and accept Christ, there will be a very deep, hot place for him in eternity. But as much as it goes against our dignity and our sense of justice, even he, if he repents, asks forgiveness and accepts Christ as Lord and Savior, his sin, including this horrible one will be forgiven. Justice will be carried out on this earth, but in eternity, he has a chance for glorious eternal life.

Why did I write this? Because I have to make sense of it all myself. I have to ask myself how God could give him grace. I fight the imagination of what I would have done in the place of the grandfather who extended grace to the one who murdered his granddaughter. But what works for forgiveness of the “regular” sins, works for the most heinous of sins.

The blood of Jesus is not limited to our sense of right and wrong and justice. It simply washes away all sin to those who turn to Him. And when it comes down to it, even if this guy gets a shot at grace, I really wouldn’t want it any other way.