Divine Justice, Quarantine, and Healing

During this time of pandemic, social distancing, and quarantine, my sacred reading today was from the First letter of John (read it all here). One text in particular deals with Divine Justice, and can really reframe how with think of Justice in an age of global contagion:

"If we confess our sins, [Christ] is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins, and purify us from all injustice." (1 John 1.9)

Here Christ’s “Justice” is shown in forgiving and releasing us from sin, and healing and purifying is so that we don’t sin anymore. This is in line with Jesus' entire life and ministry, in which he did not punish sinners or the diseased or the demon possessed, but used the power of his Love to forgive, cleanse, heal, and liberate them. Think of it like this: “Sin” is the disease (with a capital S), and our various “sins” (with a lowercase s) are the symptoms of that disease, as we spread the infection to others through acts of cruelty, hate, fear, shame, blame, etc. The symptoms we “cough up” show we are infected with the disease, and we are infectious to others. And as we now know, sometimes the infected patient has to be quarantined to stop the spread of the infection. We can think of this quarantine as the “wrath” or “judgment” of God. 

But God is also the Great Physician, and a just doctor does not want to see patients permanently quarantined, but ultimately healed. So God enters into our Sin-infected world as one of us, as Jesus Christ, to absorb our sickness and inject God’s cure into humanity. As the ancient Cappadocian Church fathers and mothers taught: God took all human nature into God’s life in Christ, so that every human may be healed and transformed by God’s Love to embody God’s Life. So, what we see revealed in Christ is that “Justice” is not primarily about punishing sins or quarantining sinners. That may be PART of the healing process, but it is NOT the goal of the healing process. God’s “Justice” is shown ultimately in healing and purifying humans so that they embody God’s Love and Life. 

If we follow Jesus as Lord, this should change several things in our mental framework: 

• First, it should transform what we think about the afterlife, about Hell, about the Resurrection, and about how Christ will heal ALL eventually. 
• Second, it should transform how we think of Justice, changing it from a punitive concept, to a process of healing for all involved. 
• Third, it should transform how we think of our judicial system and policing, changing it from primarily a “hammer” to crush injustice, to a “scalpel” which excises injustice so society can be healed. 
• Fourth, it should transform how we think of a just society overall. It should move us from thinking of society as “survival of the fittest”, to society as a place where all of God’s children have access to the medicine and “daily bread” they need to survive and thrive as God intended. This in turn changes how we view common goods in society, from healthcare, to food subsidies, to the role of government and free markets, to debt forgiveness. 
• Fifth, and finally, it should change how we think of ourselves and our mission in life. How can we be Christ’s voice of justice, and hands of healing, in our family and community and world today?

If you would like to put the ideas in this mini-essay into a larger framework with the rest of the Bible's teaching on justice, here is a short video (also pasted below), as well as a reading list. And if you have made it this far, and wanted to read about how the Coronavirus is a plague sent by God to punish humanity, or the Democrats, or the Republicans, or a certain demographic age group, for their sins, then there are secret verses in the books of James and Jeremiah which reveal the truth you are looking for.