“Hope and Redemption: Judgment and Redemption” Micah 4: 1-5:15

 Last week we started our brief discussion together about the Old Testament prophet Micah. If you recall, Micah was a prophet who predicted the fall of Jerusalem over a hundred years before it actually took place. He spoke to a Jewish community entrenched in chaos not only about the destruction of the city that was the epicenter of their identity and religion, but also the redemption and restoration of that city to something more beautiful and whole then the people’s wildest imagination.

Today we step away from the image of chaos from last week’s tale into two more parts - judgment and redemption. Judgment and redemption are tricky. We don’t like to be on the wrong side of them. We don’t like to be judged for what we do or who we are, but we seem to have no problem judging others - telling them how they could be better. We like to be offered grace and forgiveness but sometimes balk when it is offered to others. A story to illustrate the point. 

Max Lucado, Christian author and pastor, tells the story numerous times about a woman who was permanently disfigured in a freak accident. One day she was driving home after a long day and had a large turkey thrown through her wind shield. It made her face unrecognizable. She spent months undergoing surgery after surgery simply to function and returning to her previous figure was simply out of the question. She couldn’t even bring herself to look in the mirror. The person who threw the turkey was arrested and it simply came out that he threw the turkey to see what would happen because he was bored. When it came time for the young man to go to trial and be sentenced the woman was asked if she had anything to say and she told that man that she forgave him and argued for a reduced sentence. She offered him grace, forgiveness, and redemption instead of justice, and the court was aghast. 

How do you feel when you hear that story. Do you think the young man should have been punished more harshly? Do you think the woman let him off too easy with her forgiveness? Do you think the woman was brave to offer redemption? I realize that it’s very hard to say what we would do if faced with the same situation - but try putting yourself in her shoes for just a moment. How would you have reacted?

In our current context the word justice is often used to mean punishment. People getting what they deserve in our eyes. But in the context of the book of Micah and the gospel stories, that isn’t the meaning of justice at all. God’s justice can never be met. We have diluted ourselves into thinking that God’s punishment for sin is like our court system with different fines and incarceration times depending on the level and severity of the crime. But brothers and sisters God is not like that. The sin of the man who threw that turkey is seen the same by God as any of our sins of harsh words, lies, and greed. Sin is sin and all sin is hurtful to God and deserves God’s punishment. And the apostle Paul tells us that the wage for sin is death. It’s not that some sins are worse than others or that we can argue with God that our righteous moments outweigh our sinful ones. 

But that isn’t what justice means in God’s eyes. Justice for God is God’s intention to set the world right. Not through punishment, but through redemption. In today’s reading we find the image of the restored Jerusalem where God will teach us to walk in right paths. His judgement is seen as settling disputes in a way that honors God’s very self. Where there will be no more need for war and people judging people. A place where swords are beat into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. 

Justice to God isn’t the same as justice to us. Remember the things that were happening during the time of Micah - idols were being bought by money that was earned through prostitution. The temple was being financed by dishonest business practices. The citizens didn’t have enough money to feed their families, let alone the orphans and the widows, and poverty was widespread, both in terms of money and in terms of spiritual relationship with God. Prophets weren’t prophesying because they had a message from God, but rather for money in their own pockets. Sin was rampant. Yet God’s justice wasn’t to wipe them out. God’s justice was to point out their error, send them into captivity for a set time, and then restoring them beyond their wildest imagination of what is possible.

Redemption can mean restoration or buying back for a price. As Christians we believe that Christ is our redeemer, buying us back from our sinfulness with the price of his blood, which cleanses us entirely. Redemption in the time of Micah was gathering together those who had been outcasted by society, building them up into a strong people, bear a ruler greater than any they could fathom - a majestic shepherd. 

Brothers and sisters, when are we going to stop acting as the judged and start acting as the redeemed? When are we going to follow the majestic shepherd of Jesus Christ? When are we going to stop complaining about what the world is doing or how awful the world is and start believing that we are here for such a time as this? Redemption isn’t believing that the world is so awful that it is beyond God’s grace, goodness, and hope until the return of Jesus. And redemption isn’t just sitting back until Jesus comes back and not care for anyone in this world except each other. That is actually the sin of dualism tainted by judgment. Redemption isn’t believing that our labors are in vain. Redemption means that we believe that our redeemer lives and that nothing is impossible with our God. Redemption comes when we pray big prayers, God sized-prayers - ones that are only possible with God. Redemption comes when we stand upon the firm, yet highly unpopular truth, that God is doing something bigger than we can perceive to put this world right. 

Its time that we do the hard work of looking into our hearts and asking that God reveal any of our hidden (and public) sin to us so we can confess it and set our relationship back right with God and with each other. Its time we do that hard work instead of slipping into the easy pattern of judging others - either as individuals or collectively. Its time we set aside our language of just waiting until Jesus comes back and instead embrace the hard work of praying that God’s redemption come, even if that means we are a bit aghast, like those in the court story, when we see what true redemption and forgiveness looks like. Its time that we stop praying that everything be fair and even and instead pray that God’s Kingdom come, even if that means our sense of justice needs to be set aside. 

Hope and redemption go hand in hand. Hoping in God’s restoration and renewal. Actively waiting for that time to come. Not forcing people to hope by threatening our terms of justice, but instead of inviting them to hope in our God who is doing a new things. A new thing that needs to be proclaimed and witnessed to, here in this place at this time. Amen.