Judge Judy

I use to watch this show when I was a kid. My mom would watch the oldie goodie shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show, or Bonanza, and sometimes an occasional soap opera from The Young and the Restless. I can remember the weekends and the summers as a kid when I would be roaming around the house around 10 or 11 in the morning and mom would be on the phone in the kitchen cooking, and she would come on in the background. She would always be sitting up there behind that desk, with her glasses pulled down real low on her nose so that she could see the criminals better. She would sit there and listen to them plead their case, then she would talk some sense into them, and then it came. She would bring down the wrath of justice on them. With one swift crack of her mallet on the wood it would be over. She had the power in that room, and she would make it rain justice. Mom didn't like for me to watch the show because she was trying to shelter me a little from all the crazy people in the world (Preciate you Mom), but I caught the gist of it. In the end justice is served. 


I'm reminded of Judge Judy when I read the book of Isaiah. Some of you may think thats dumb and stupid, and my response to that is you don't understand how my mind works so go and read someone else's blog. In all seriousness though the book of Isaiah is hard for me. Is a grinder. You see I know myself all to well. I know my own sin. I look at myself in the mirror everyday. I am my own worst critic, and I am all too human. I sin everyday. I come up short every day. In more ways than I like to admit. So when I think about God, I like to think about him as the loving, forgiving, Father that He is to his children. I don't like to think about the Righteous Judge that He is too. I don't like to think about him bringing down his judgment on nations and people that have turned their back on Him. I don't like to see him bringing destruction, exiling, crushing, sparing none,  and never forgiving. That makes me a little queasy, because deep down, I know that I deserve all of those things. And I know that all of those things are true about him. I know that I don't deserve the merciful, loving, forgiving God that He also is when His people turn to Him and put their trust in Him. I deserve to know him as the Righteous Judge who seeks justice. "I, the Lord, will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their sin," Isaiah 13:11. That's who I deserve to know.

Sometimes with our own personal sin, we cannot see the ramifications of that sin in the moment that we do it. When I look at a female in a way that I shouldn't, it doesn't immediately hurt me. I don't have a shock collar that sends a zap through me every time I go astray. Every time I relish in my own pride and arrogance I don't get immediately struck down dead and cast out to where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. But what I have to know is this, God loves justice. He is a righteous Judge, and He will be just when we stand before Him in that day of our own personal reckoning.

(I don't really think ahead and plan much into the timing of these things so when it plays out like this tell the scorekeeper to give the assist to God's Sovereignty and will).

It's Saturday morning of easter weekend. However many years ago it was, this weekend commemorates the time that we as Christians set aside to remember what Jesus did for us on the cross. He came to earth, leaving his throne in heaven, to come suffer on the cross, with the world's sin holding him suspended in the air until he died. He came into the courtroom with us and Judge Judy, and He came to take the punishment for our sins for us. He took our place. That moment of reckoning with my Righteous Judge that I deserve, He took that for me. He took that for you. He is the reason that we are able to know God as the merciful, loving, forgiving God that He is, even as He remains a God who loves and seeks justice. What a story. Thank you Jesus, and I love you too. I don't really know what else you can say for that.