jim henson

The Casey Anthony trial and its resulting mass hysteria has prompted me to think of mercy.

I admit to being carried along by the auto-accident-like atmosphere of the whole thing. It is very difficult once you get hooked on a news story like this one, which plays out way beyond its normal news cycle, to stop feeding into the media hype. It has become something horrific on the side of the road that we don't want to focus on, but can't seem to look away from.

Our "news" is now so far from anything newsworthy as to be unbelievable. We are no better than medieval mobs chasing a fellow villager and crying out for blood. We now do this for entertainment and sport!  Now some of the jurors are fleeing Florida for their lives because the public's taste for blood has been fed by the media to the point where death threats have occurred for the jurors and the Anthonys alike.

What is needed now is Mercy. Jesus stopped the mob who was getting ready to stone the woman caught in adultery by reminding them that all sin.

This trial and these people are real.  They are not characters in a movie or a "reality" tv show.  The same is true for any sensational news story that we hang onto--these are real people and they are crying out, as we all cry out, for God's tender mercies to be poured onto them like a healing balm.

Jesus came to heal and He came to cure.  He expects us to do the same. In the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus showed his listeners that to participate in His healing ministry was more important than outwardly appearing religious and pious.  Will we be stoning these sinners brought before us by our entertainment media, or will we be surrounding them in the soothing balm of Christ's love?

To gather the strength necessary for such a mission, Jesus spent entire nights, hours and hours, in prayer.  Perhaps it is time we turn away from our "entertainment" to the reality of God and His mercy and ask Him to come heal our broken world.