From The Gate
By Rick Mathes
There I stood in a chapel packed out
with death row inmates. To the novice
this can be very disconcerting. I have
to admit that I still get nervous to this day because the thought always
crosses my mind that any one of them could suddenly decide to grab me by the
throat. After all, what would it matter to anyone of them when they’re under a
death sentence?
Looking over this unusual
congregation I could hardly notice any difference from a normal church service
except for the drab uniforms they were wearing.
It was, and has been since, a blessed event to bring the Good News to
the last, lost and least which I have been committed to these last 20 years.
Standing there I thought to myself,
“After these guys leave this service they’re going to go back to doing what
they were doing before they got here. They’re going to go back to watching a
big screen television with a bowl of popcorn, reading in a comfortable lounge
chair, resume playing fooz-ball or ping-pong or just sit around chatting while
they wait for their craft class to start. They were all well fed, seemingly
happy and the camaraderie amongst them might well have been the same as you
would find in any country club lounge amongst friends after a round of golf.
For the majority of them, I’m sure this was the best life they had ever had.”
Then, I contrasted their situation
to that of their victims’. Their victims were dead
and
their families, friends and loved ones were grieving. In many instances the victim’s family
withdraws from society and pulls away from God blaming Him for allowing such a
catastrophic event in their lives. The families of victims have little if any
part in the judicial process and almost never is there any form of restitution
made to the victim’s family. Now, I am all for justice and mercy, but something
is wrong with this picture.
Numbers
35:30 says, if anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death….
Capital punishment is meted out for punishment of the guilty party and their
life is required as restitution for the life they so wantonly took. Murderers
deserve their punishment to the full measure with no mercy this side of glory.
I once discipled a death row inmate
scheduled to be executed, and during one of our meetings he revealed a poignant
irony. He told me that preparing himself for his execution was like peeling an
onion. Over the past several weeks he had been peeling off the layers of his
life such as his wife, kids, friends, and so on, crying over each layer until
he got down to just him and Jesus. He said, “You know Rick, there is really
some humor in this execution.” I was aghast at his comment and asked him to
explain further. He replied, “They are
punishing me by sending me straight into the arms of Jesus!” That comment hit
me like a ton of bricks. How ironic I thought. Where
is the Justice? This guy murders someone, sits around watching a big screen TV
eating popcorn, when he's not reading in the law library and writing up
appeals, while the family of the guy he murdered tries to deal with the loss of
a husband and father. And, the only restitution that that poor family is
going to get is for this guy to be sent into the arms of Jesus -- assuming of
course he has repented and knows Jesus as his Savior.
For those on death row, this side of
glory should be hell itself and the other side mercy in the presence of our
Lord or
a continuance of hell that apart from Jesus they most surely deserve.
Rick Mathes
and his wife Trish are the co-founders of Mission Gate Prison Ministries,
an outreach to those who are incarcerated and their families in