Chad and Trina Tolbert and their teenage son Zach lived in a rather ordinary Mid-Western town.  Many of their friends envied their loving marriage as well as how close they were to Zach.

Last winter their neighbor, Meg, came over to tell them that her 17-year old nephew, Jordon, had gotten in some trouble and was going to come to live with her for a while to see if she could get him straightened out.

Chad and Trina promised to do everything they could to help and expressed the hope that their son Zach could be a friend and a good influence for Jordon and help him adjust to the move.

For the next six months, the situation could not have gone better.  Jordon practically lived at the Tolbert’s house.  He ate supper with them half the time and they often invited him to stay to do his homework with Zach or just to hang out with their family.

Chad and Trina knew Meg didn’t have much money, so they frequently bought Jordan clothes, paid his way to school and church activities, and let him know they were there to help him with any need that might arise.

Then one unforgettable afternoon the whole community was shocked to learn that when Chad came home from work, he found Trina murdered in their living room.   The house had been ransacked and it appeared obvious that robbery was the motive behind the brutal murder.

Chad and Zach were devastated.  Their grief was profound.

Within hours the police arrested a suspect–their teenaged neighbor, Jordan.  Over the next few weeks the evidence, including DNA, was undeniable. Jordan, the young man Trina and her family had been so good to, was her murderer.

That tragic story isn’t true, but it allows us to clarify the meaning of some important terms.

If Chad somehow smuggled a gun into the court room and shot to death Jordan, his wife’s murderer, we would call that “VENGEANCE.”

If instead the court found Jordan guilty of murder and sentenced him to die by lethal injection, that would be called “JUSTICE.”

If Chad, in spite of his grief and loss, asked the court to PARDON Jordan for murdering his wife and to set him free, that would be called, “MERCY.”

On the other hand, if Chad, moved with love for his wife’s murderer, volunteered his only son, Zach, to die by lethal injection in Jordan’s place so he could go free; if Jordan confessed his crime and asked forgiveness and Chad then took Jordan into his home and adopted him as his own son to take Zach’s place, and for the rest of his life, loved and cared for Jordan, showered on him everything he needed, and treated him as if the crime had never happened, that would be “GRACE” – outrageous, illogical goodness to someone who deserved the opposite.And that is exactly what God, our Heavenly Father has given to us: outrageous, illogical goodness when we deserved the opposite. He sent His Son who took on Himself the sins of the world – He died in our place and was resurrected in victory over sin and death.