The Transformative Power of Grace

I wish I could say that it's easy for me to forgive people and "extend grace", but that wouldn't be true. I don't think I'm alone when I say that the visceral reaction is to want vengeance, which we can make sound better by calling it "justice". It satisfies the law of the jungle within us, where someone hurts us and we hurt them back. Or even better, we all probably thirst a little for the "Chicago Way", as Sean Connery's character puts it in "The Untouchables":

"You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way!"

Humankind's propensity to extract an eye (or more) for an eye makes me all the more amazed when I read stories like the one about Reverend Kim Shin Jo, a pastor who was formerly a North Korean assassin sent to kill the president of South Korea. Kim was captured during a firefight with South Korean security forces where almost all of his comrades were killed. While interrogators understandably passionate about beating the living daylights out of him to gain information (though certainly the death of 30 of their brothers-in-arms kept them enthused about harsh interrogation techniques), a South Korean general befriended him and showed sympathy and forgiveness. Moved, he eventually settled down and became a pastor.

If we're really "results-oriented" people, you'd think we'd be naturally inclined to choose the approach which is not only the right thing to do from a Christian standpoint, but it's often more effective. It's amazing to see how much more powerful gentleness and grace can be compared to harshness and vengeance in terms of changing hearts. That's not to say that there isn't a place for justice and discipline, but an acknowledgement that our natural tendencies lean towards retribution as opposed to more effective gracious responses.

In this day where some Americans inexplicably question providing aid to flood victims in Pakistan or why the US is bothering to help build infrastructure in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, the transformative power of grace phenomena should be remembered.