Justice For Those Who Won’t Be Heard

Just Mercy. I don’t know where the name originated or if it had a deeper meaning, but how fitting this name seems for the recent movie about the death row case of Walter McMillian (Johnny D.)

A man who committed no crime was sentenced to death for a young girl who he didn’t even know. It was not only him who knew his innocence. His entire family and friends were with him when the girl was killed. They knew he was innocent.

All of these people knew his innocence. There wasn’t a shred of real evidence that pointed to his guilt, yet they couldn’t do anything about it. In fact, in some ways, the more that they did, the more harm they caused. The law, the people, the jury, none of them were on their side.

It’s hard watching injustice, even when it’s decades after it’s happened. Seeing men sitting in a cell by themselves, no hope for the future. Some of them fully deserving of death, but realizing that we’re all deserving of death. Eternal death.

How terrible it is to think that some will never be granted a fair trial here on earth, but all of us are given a chance for our eternal life. Even deserving death, we are always heard by God if we cry out to him and ask for forgiveness.

It hurts that some will not be heard on earth, but all are heard by God. But, it is our responsibility to tell them.

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Romans 10:14-17 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.