You’ve read the news, just as I have.  After a long shift, an off-duty police officer returns home.  Unfortunately, she gets off on the wrong floor of her building and proceeds to what she thinks is her apartment – it would be, if she were on the correct floor.  She’s distracted, tired, sleep-deprived?  We don’t know.  We weren’t there.  Sadly, we do know what happened.  She shot and killed the twenty-six year old occupant of that apartment, Botham Jean.  An act she will live with every single minute of every single hour of every single day – for the rest of her life.  She was sentenced to ten years of her life.

How would you or I feel if the young man who lost his life that day had been your brother or my brother?  Angry, confused, hurt, sad…angry.  No doubt, all of those feelings went through the mind of Botham’s brother, eighteen year old Brandt Jean.  After Amber Guyger was sentenced to ten years in prison, and during his victim impact statement, the young brother made a brave and surprising decision.  He asked to give his brother’s murderer a hug.  He had listened to Amber Guyger’s sobbing testimony when she repeatedly said how sorry she was.  He chose to forgive.  In a long embrace, Brandt Jean hugged Amber Guyger and forgave her.  I don’t know what she said to him but she wept in his arms.  Reportedly, Brandt Jean said “if you are truly sorry – I know I can speak for myself – I forgive you.”   Mercy and grace.

This truly was a picture none of us will forget anytime soon…a compelling look at what Christ Jesus did for us.   Regardless of what we’ve done or who we are, God loves us.  Unmerited mercy and grace.  Our debt of sin must be paid. Amazingly, God sent His only son Jesus to pay for our sin – on the cross.  It is a gift but it must be accepted.  We must come undeserving to the foot of the cross – asking for forgiveness, repenting…believing in His gift of salvation and eternal life.  Thank God when Jesus walked out of that tomb, he had conquered death and purchased our pardon.

I thank God for a Christian judge who gave her personal Bible to Amber Guyger.  I pray Amber reads it.  I pray she begins with John 3:16:  “For God so loved the world, that he gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him, shall not die but shall have eternal life”.