What would you say to Derek Chauvin?

Repent and believe the gospel. Which is precisely what I would have said to George Floyd, had I the opportunity. Which doesn’t in the least suggest a moral equivalency between the actions of the two. It does, however, suggest a moral equivalency between the persons of the two. Both men bear the image of their Maker. As such both are due, on this earthly sphere, dignity and respect. That one failed to show such to the other changes not what both are owed.

From their Maker, however, both are due nothing but wrath and judgment. Both have fallen well short of God’s call to live in perfect obedience. Each of these two men woke up, in themselves, and just like the rest of us, under a death sentence from the Judge of heaven and earth. That sentence, because of the absolute justice of the Judge, must be served. The promise of the gospel, however, is that Jesus suffered that sentence for all who rest in Him. It is finished.

Repenting and believing the gospel, however, impacts not just eternity but the here and now. What it does is remind us that we are all Chauvin-ists. We all think too highly of ourselves, and see others as the wicked. They, whomever “they” may be to “us” the bad ones and we the good. Except the truth is we are the bad ones and He the good. We are a nation of murderers. Roughly 40 million moms, along with 40 million husbands, boyfriends, fathers, in this country alone have murdered their own children.

Such does nothing to diminish the horror of what Derek Chauvin did. Instead it reveals the horror that we are all more than capable of. I know a man who took a couple of children, and without their consent, put them in his car and proceeded to endanger their lives and the lives of many others by driving down the highway while fall-down drunk. Those children were my own. Who would do such a thing? Me. I did it. Lifelong Christian. Theology professor. Author of multiple Christian books. Conference speaker. Sinner, saved by grace.

When the eyes of the nation are drawn to the spectacle of video of a man being slowly choked to death by a man sworn to protect and defend, and then to the spectacle of looting, rioting, cities in flames, the question to ask is not, “What is wrong with you people?” but “What is wrong with me?” Now is not the time to bloviate on systems of oppression, to pontificate in order to mitigate, to contain and explain the inexcusable. Now is the time to recognize what is in us, the vile stench of our own sinfulness that has been viral from the beginning. We don’t need a national conversation on race. We don’t need remedial teaching on proper restraint techniques. What we need is a national conversation on our universal need for God’s grace and the fullness of His provision in Christ.

When we witness wickedness we are called to recognize ourselves. When we see ourselves we are calle to call on the name of the Lord. Repent, and believe the gospel. It is what we all need to hear, submit to, embrace, proclaim and rest in.