A taxi driver pulled up outside a unit block in Cairns.
“Where’s number 12″, he asked a man who was standing nearby.
“I don’t know”, the man replied.
“Black bastard”, was the response.
Today, the taxi driver and the company he works for (which is ironically called Black and White Taxis), have been ordered to pay $2,000 in damages, and to cover his costs. Read the article here.
Clearly, any kind of racial derogatory remarks are completely out of line (in case anyone was wondering where I’m going with this!).
But what is the appropriate form of compensation when we are offended or ill-treated? How do we determine whether the offended party should be paid $20, $2,000 or $2,000,000?
On Saturday I was chatting with Mike and he explained that the $2,000 is not intended as compensation for the victim, but as punishment for the perpetrator (and discouragement to future offenders). Of course, the victim receives the money, but it’s not really about ‘making things right’. Unless you break my tv or some other mass produced possession, money can’t make things right.
This is another reason why I love the good news about what God has done for us.
We were the perpetrators – rejecting God and living as if he doesn’t exist. He’s the victim, but not in the sense of being helpless, but because he is the offended party. He has been wronged, but he doesn’t hunt us down seeking compensation. He provides the ‘compensation’ himself – sending his son to die our punishment for our sin.
He does what is required to make things right – to restore the relationship.
1 Peter 2:24 is wonderful news: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”
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