Jesus - Defender of the Damned

I picked up this book other day - "Defending the Damned" by Kevin Davis. one of those impulsive, while-the-other-books-are-undergoing-the-scanner-I'll-pull-this-one-off-"needs to sorted" cart moments. (That can't be proper grammar.)

Davis is an award-winning journalist based in Chicago, who has written for the Chicago magazine, Tribune, Sun Times, and the list goes on. He spent five years studying public defenders at the Cook County Courthouse on California & 35th, not far from where I live. Yes, public defenders. You know the ones. The lawyers assigned to those who cannot afford to pay for a defender.

Davis was intrigued by these particular lawyer's motivation - lawyers who plead the case of individuals who, 9.8 times out of 10 are guilty, often committing their crime in broad daytime within sight of several witnesses. Davis' investigation began with several of his own, looming questions. Are these defenders conscious-less, morally-seared individuals, only a rung or two above their clients on the humanity ladder? Were they as appalled and deeply disturbed by the stoic recounts of their clients' grotesque crimes, some as heinous as the rape, murder, and dismemberment of months-old babies? How can they defend clients on trial for such "horrible acts day after day, year after year, while keeping a safe emotional distance and preserving their sanity? What motivate[s] them to come to work in such a dark place?"

I won't give away what Davis discovers (haven't yet finished the book myself). You will have to buy/borrow the book for yourself. However, from page one of the "Author's Note" I was struck by how this author was describing with secular words a secular world which has remarkable parallels to the spiritual world. Simply put, Jesus. As someone who has a fondness for seeing justice served (unless it is pointed at myself, of course) I've been regularly challenged by the notion of Jesus as our advocate - our lawyer - before the Father. For me, however, the word advocate or lawyer has always conjured up some images of a handsome man in a clean-cut suite, addicted to work and enamored with the intricacies of words and their meanings. And, because there many different kinds of lawyers the parallel between the fleshly, occupational lawyer and the seen-by-few, now-in heaven Advocate for Jesus Christ, in the past, has only retained its challenge only for so long. The endearing "warm fuzzies" of Jesus' compelling, tear-jerking closing comments to the Father on my behalf have ended once I begin the mental debate over Jesus as our property rights lawyer or international courts lawyer or... but, never has my list included Jesus as our/my public defender.

If you think about it, though, that's exactly what he is - the advocate for the damned. Served in a dark place. Saviour of those who've committed heinous crimes. Misunderstood by the media and the general public. Quickly stereotyped by a world who knows little if not anything about the case He is defending or the motive of His defense. Whose closest friends are beer-drinking, work-crazed, justice-bent, quirky men, some of whom have been raised in Chicago's Gold Coast while others pulled themselves up by their bootstraps to be something more than their coal mining father.

Having grown up in the church my entire life, attending one Christian school after the next, and now working in a ministry, the Christian cliche is just about all I can present in my explanation of the Person of my faith. So, I'm finding "Defending the Damned" to be a manual of new words, illustrations, and explanations of Jesus to a world who can't quite understand the humanity of my God.