Love and Justice

We often heard that God is love and just. These two characters of God can not be separated. My question is which character precedes the other. Will God uphold His justice first before He show His love, or will He show His love first before He establish His justice?

In the Old Testament, God showed His justice to the nations or people who were against His words, which I sometimes felt too harsh. Maybe it was the culture back then to destroy or be destroyed. Whenever Israel worshiped God, they lived prosperously, whenever they turned their back from God, they lived miserably. The cause and the consequence was so clear back then.

In the New Testament, it feels like God through Jesus showed His love and compassion over justice. Jesus challenged the crowd which include the honorable teachers of religious law and the Pharisees, who brought a woman caught in adultery to throw the first stone at her.
He said," Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone."

Should this happen in the Old Testament, the law clearly said that both the man and the woman who have committed adultery must be put to death. And come to this, I wonder why the crowd who brought the woman to Jesus, did not brought the man as well?

At the end Jesus said to the woman," Go and sin no more." This is the justice that Jesus taught.

Even Jesus was the victim of injustice. How He was pronounced guilty and sentenced to tortures and death sentence over false accusation. The God Himself seemed helpless over the word's unjust system. 

That is what I feel recently when terrorists detonate bombs over three churches in Surabaya exactly one week ago. How to see God's justice when thirteen people died while they were on their way to worship God? A parent lost their two cute little boys. A mom with one toddler and a 10-month baby lost her husband. When the pastors and churches said that we have to forgive the bomber and even pray for them, this heart still could not be consoled. Where is Your justice Lord? Why the good party seems to be always losing? Can we defeat this evil over prayer and forgiveness only?

At the cross Jesus prayed for His accusers. He said,"Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing." These people who commit these horrible acts, don't they know what they are doing? They have been so brainwashed, they live for one purpose only, to reach heaven by suicide bombing targeted to public places. They think they know what they are doing but actually they don't know what they are doing. There are no religions in the world teach their believers to kill people in order to get to heaven.

Jesus died at the cross after He forgave the people who have crucified Him. After His resurrection, Jesus did not take revenge to these hypocrites, like the story line in the Hollywood movies. Where is the justice Lord? Do I have to wait until I reach heaven to see if justice has been served? I am not that patient, and of course I pray that I still have a long life to live.

God's justice is sometimes so hard to understand,  just like it's so hard to understand His love. How Jesus showed himself to Paul who persecuted Jesus's followers from town to town, showed His love and mercy, and in turn changed Paul from a murderer of early Christians to a martyr for the Gospel.

That is His way of justice - always love and forgiveness first, and then justice will take its own form.

Dear God,
Gives us strength to forgive and show kindness
To people who don't understand what they are doing
To somehow enlighten them that heaven is a place of love and joy
Not a reward of hate and terror