Even for Ahab

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator

We continue to read the story of Elijah and Ahab today. If you have been following the story, you know just how despicable and deplorable Ahab's sins were. Perhaps the ending of this story will surprise you because when Ahab showed outward signs of repentance, the sacred writer records that God delayed the punishment and visited it upon the son of Ahab after Ahab's death. For most of us, this just doesn't seem fair.

Yet the truth conveyed by this passage from Scripture bears out the Gospel parable of the lost sheep. God rejoices over the repentance of one rather than the upright ninety-nine. Even someone as degenerate as Ahab is forgiven when he repents.

Just yesterday I was reading an internet posting from someone who was warning people of the wrath of God because of their sins. It was pretty standard stuff and sought to strike terror in readers who were possessed of secret sins. They would, the writer exclaimed, all be revealed and all of them would be duly punished by the fires of hell. Nowhere in the posting did it speak of the possibility of repentance. The writer identified the justice of God as something that would eventually roll over the sinners and crush them. For some people who are upright and striving to do good, this kind of thinking satisfies an inner need for retribution. Indeed, the Hebrew Scriptures do spend a fair amount of time expressing this need.

Jesus, on the other hand, consistently taught that the pattern of God's justice is mercy. As hard as it is for us to admit, when it comes to mercy and forgiveness, God's ways are simply not our ways. I have a feeling, however, that our need for retribution will shrink to almost nothing when we stand before the judgment seat of God ourselves and realize that Jesus' image of God is not the God of retribution but the God of mercy.