John 11:35

I am a Californian by birth and rearing, and I hear something regrettably familiar in what is reported from California.  Would that Californians and others were always as concerned with justice as they appear to be when their responsibility is to sit in judgment of a criminal and his crime.  Christians should want to be prompt to do justice.  Justice is only part of the picture, however.  We cannot be certain that Hell enjoys a population, but if it does, God regrets this as the unavoidable consequence of the justice that attends our created human freedom.  The fascinating history of exegesis of John 11:35 reveals our human resistance to acknowledge that even our Saviour was moved to weep about human death itself.  If Christians have a contribution to make to public discourse and decision concerning criminal punishment and death, justice is a worthy starting point.  But with the lex talionis as available to the trigger finger as it is, I wouldn't be surprised if Christians didn't offer their best witness by mourning, as Jesus did, the consequences of justice, which lead to punishment, sometimes even to death.  This is not the only necessary witness, of course.  This is a both-and situation, to be sure -- but what I want to hear loud and clear is that Christians engaged in punishing (sometimes unto death) are engaged in a business that the God who desires the salvation of all must sorrow over.  My friend Richard Schenk OP suggests that our duties as Christians to punish do not arise without the need to regret our assignment.  As Thomas Aquinas teaches in his Commentary on John:  "He wept in order to reveal to us that it is not blameworthy to weep out of compassion . . . .   He wept with a purpose, which was to teach us that we should weep on account of sin  . . . . "