An
Inkling
Usually
sports talk shows are inane. I watch
them at the gym when I’m running on the elliptical machine, and am happy to
have my brain in neutral. But yesterday,
as the sports-talkers were digesting the Penn State penalties, they moved from
the usual minors masquerading as majors (was the right play called? is LeBron really that great?) into genuine
majors (how to respond to evil, and the nature of justice).
The
evil was that a Penn State football
coach raped a bunch of boys, and that some Penn State officials, including the
all-time winningest head coach, Joe Paterno, covered it up, which led to more
such rapes. And justice was supposed to be served by the NCAA penalties – much
harsher than any before ($60 million fine, four years of restricted scholarships
and no bowl games, and a striking of all wins since 1998, thereby bumping Coach
Paterno down the most-win list). Penn
State officials accepted the penalties and removed Paterno’s statue from their
stadium.
The
talk back and forth about the justice of the penalties sounded like this:
- It’s too little. How can this ever make it up to the boys who were raped?
- It’s too much. This will cripple Penn State football for a decade.
- It’s misdirected, punishing the wrong people, the current and future players.
- It’s clumsy, tarring over all the good that Joe Paterno and his crew did for many years.
- It’s unfair. Why just Penn State? What about the murder at Baylor, etc?
They
all have a point, and their points made me all the more grateful for God’s justice. His justice is never too little or too
much. It is applied precisely to those
deserving. It does not lose the good in
removing the evil. And it is perfectly even-handed.
Hats
off to the NCAA for pursuing justice, and not just rolling up the windows and
driving on by. More justice will be
pursued in the Pennsylvania civil and criminal courts – a good thing. But let’s not imagine that these human
judgments will ever do more than approximate real justice. Even our “justice” needs God’s justice.
And
mercy! If even our efforts to make
things right fall short, how much more do we need mercy for the ways we too
have used and abused others, and hidden our eyes from the same? It’s good news that the Divine Judge is fully
just. And it’s even better news that the
same Judge has determined to bear the full cost of justice himself on our
behalf. Thus the cross of Jesus, where
evil was defeated, and where justice and mercy met. It’s the best of all good news.
Blessings,
Keith
