The Sentencing

2/16/12
They made me take my belt off and put it in the plastic dish with my cell phone, wallet, keys, and pocket change before walking through the metal detector. It went off on me anyway, of course, so I got the wand-treatment. Then I made trek up to the 7th floor and found the 147th Court. The sister, mother, and an uncle of the convicted waited a little further down the hall. We were there to provide some measure of moral support for a member of our church who was scheduled to be sentenced for his crime at 2:00pm. The looks on their faces told me they were glad I had come. It’s always good to know somebody cares, even if that someone cannot fix anything. I believe Eugene Peterson is right when he writes in this book The Pastor, “My work is not to fix people. It is to lead people in the worship of God and to lead them in living a holy life.”

We formed a circle and I said a prayer. I asked God for justice, truth, and most of all mercy for the convicted and his family. Then we went into the courtroom. The ex-wife came in after we had taken our seats. She is also a member of the church. She was with her father and another woman that I guessed was an attorney. They sat on the opposite side of the room. After a few minutes I stood and walked across the room to greet her and her father. I gave her a hug and went back to my seat behind the sister of the convicted. “All rise,” the bailiff called out as the judge entered in his black robe and took his seat at the bench. We sat down and waited for the convicted to be
brought in. After a few minutes it was evident that something was amiss. Some kind of glitch in the system had failed to transport the convicted from his prison cell to the courtroom. After a 45 minute delay the deputies showed up with the prisoner in leg shackles.

The proceedings didn’t last long. The prosecutor made her case for a longer sentence. The defense attorney made his case for mercy. Mercy carried the day as the judge opted for the shortest sentence allowable under the law. As the convicted man was led away I edged over to the rail to get as close to him as I could and called out to him, “God be with you brother.” I hugged the family members and that was it. What an incredible privilege it is to be there, just to show up in the moment of a family’s great need. My hope and my prayer is that my presence reminded that family that God was there and God cares. In such moments I’m counting on Christ in me to be more visible and my own self to be much less visible.