"When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them,
'Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.'
When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders...
Jesus said to her, 'Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?'
She said, 'No one sir.' And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you.
Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.'"
- John 8: 7-11
Today, August 26, 2020, there will be another execution carried out by the federal government. I don't like to be political in my blog, because it's not the heart of what these postings are about. The heart of this political posting, however, has to do with the Heart of Jesus.
In the passage from the Gospel of John that is included above, Jesus so clearly demonstrates his earlier statements that He came not to condemn the world but to save it. And each one of us is the world for which He came to save. (John 3:17)
When I was a child and heard this story of the adulterous woman read in church on Sunday morning, I thought, "It's so mean to throw rocks at someone!" - as I pictured the small stones that mischievous children would throw for entertainment or sometimes for destructive reasons. How naive I was, in my childhood innocence! These rocks were, in fact, huge stones that would be thrown by a group of people at the accused person until that person slowly died of blunt force trauma. A barbaric and gruesome act of capital punishment - and behavior
that obviously was displeasing to our Lord Jesus.
A year ago this month, I said yes to a nudging by the Holy Spirit to become a pen pal to a man on death row in NC. My life has not been the same since then. My earlier conviction that the death penalty is inherently wrong (and another evil we seem to celebrate in this country) became not just political - it became personal! My pen pal has slowly become my friend, and I could no longer just sit back and oppose the death penalty in theory, I had to take action. My friendship with this young man has been a two-way blessing. He assures me of how much he values my letters that share day-to-day activities, while we both write stories from our lives, and about books we have read and enjoyed. We write about our favorite basketball teams, local and national news, and TV shows. He calls me and we enjoy 15 minutes of chatting and laughing, listening and consoling. And I have come to learn about the very young person who was condemned to die and the man he is today who shows compassion and remorse, thoughtfulness and friendship. He is so much more than the worst things that he has ever done. We are first and foremost children of God - broken and wounded by life. We are all worthy of God's redemption.
If we think that today's execution of a man has no affect on you or on this country, I challenge you to educate yourself, before moving on to something less troubling to read today. There are numerous books where one can learn about the toll that this cold-blooded act has on the defense attorneys, the correctional officers, the "death teams," and the prison wardens and administrative staff. The families and friends of those being killed by the state are deeply impacted; when their loved one was sentenced to death row, so were they. And what may be the most surprising - not all victims' families want to see the offender killed. Thinking that's true is a myth that some people want us to believe. Organizations and non-profits have been formed by multiple victims' families to help in abolishing the death penalty!
I hope you will choose to learn more about this emotional and controversial
political, social, and spiritual problem. Here's a short list of books, from so
many written, that I can attest to for educating yourself on this issue:
Lethal State: A History
of the Death Penalty in North Carolina
The Death of Innocents: The
Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions
Executing Grace: How the
Death Penalty Killed Jesus and Why It’s Killing Us
Just Mercy: A Story of
Justice and Redemption
Dead Man Walking
The Sun Does Shine: How
I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row
Death Row: The Final
Minutes
Where Justice and Mercy
Meet
Crimson Letters: Voices
from Death Row
Here
also are websites where you can literally spend hours reading and learning - and, hopefully, taking action:
www.deathpenaltyinfo.org
www.ncadp.org
www.deathpenaltyaction.org
www.witnesstoinnocence.org
www.eji.org
www.catholicsmobilizing.org
www.aclu.org
I ask you to spend some time today in prayer for the victims, the family and friends of the victims, and those of the condemned. Pray too for the federal officers, the warden, the condemned's fellow death row inmates, and for Lezmond Mitchell himself, as he is put to death... And then ask yourself if you feel safer because this man died today.
💙
