These are all words that should be very familiar to the Christian and words that we should use each and everyday in our vocabulary. I have often said that one the hardest things a Christian is asked to do is to forgive. Not an easy task.
Today Scottish officials released Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi the convicted bomber of Pan Am Flight 103. 270 people were killed on that day over Lockerbie Scotland and al-Megrahi was the only one convicted of the bombing.
al-Megrahi was given life and Scottish law allows for the Justice minister to release people on compassionate grounds. He is suffering from cancer and is sure to die. The justification of releasing him was so he could die at home. Something that he did not allow his victims to do.
I believe in compassion and I believe in forgiveness but I also believe that a sentence is a sentence and it should be carried out. He was tried and found guilty and was given a life sentence. Again I understand compassion but by all accounts he was getting fair treatment in prison and could have been made comfortable until his end.
I believe that the release of this man flies in the face of justice for the 270 people who were killed on that day. It flies in the face of the memory of the 270 and in the face of their families.
This is not justice, this is not compassion, this is just wrong.
Letting him out isn't about him. It's about us.
But I do understand that is a terribly hard thing for some to hear. This is the way God deals with us and we have no right to deal with each other differently.
That is not so say we let everyone out of prison, but it means we sometimes let people out who don't deserve it as a testimony to what we have received.
I believe it was wrong for Scottish officials to release the man convicted of being responsible for bombing an airline that killed 170 innocent people.
The fact that this man has cancer and will not live much longer does not justify his release from a lifetime prison sentence.
The 170 innocent people he was responsible for killing should have been the paramount factor considered by Scottish officials in this man's prison sentence, not the fact that he has cancer.