The room was full of guilt, and I knew this because I was sitting in it. I arrived early and sat in one of benches toward the back of the room, perhaps a small attempt at being inconspicuous. But in a courtroom no one goes unnoticed, and this is particularly true of those who are on trial. Traffic court, I discovered, is an interesting place. At the very least it made for an afternoon of good people-watching. At most it offered a window into realms of justice, faith, and human behavior.

A few months prior to my court appearance, I had been caught speeding less than a mile from my house. True, there were several factors at work, but there was no question of my guilt. I was in a hurry to get home, deep in thought about a sad situation, and driving my husband’s car (which was a bit easier to accelerate). My mind was simply elsewhere, and I was speeding. My initial thought was to simply pay the ticket and be done with it. But the officer said if I showed up in court, he would lower the fine.

I had never been to traffic court before. I had no idea they were going to announce my crime in public and ask me to state my plea before the masses. It was all somewhat humiliating, even if warranted. (I felt sorriest for the teenage offenders in the room; the magistrate was especially hard on them.) After every crime had been publically exposed, our guilt seemed to loom like giant name tags. My entire row was filled with speeders. Others were caught driving with expired tags or licenses, cited for following too closely, or driving recklessly. One by one we were called to stand before the judge—and one by one we were pardoned.

To the surprise of all, our charges were all dismissed. They took the yellow tickets we’d been clutching in our sweaty hands and handed us tickets rewritten with warnings where steep fines had once been. The entire room stood together in guilt and then the guilt was removed. I suspect what we experienced was far from typical. I’m not sure one can even remotely say justice was served. But regardless, for this microcosm of a guilty world, it was something of a modern day of jubilee.

Jesus once told a parable about a widow and a judge.(1) Unlike those in my court story, the widow was not guilty of anything. Day in and day out, she came to this judge who “neither feared God nor cared about men” with a single plea: “Grant me justice against my adversary.” For some time the judge refused. But finally, he relented, saying to himself, “[B]ecause this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!” As often is the case, Jesus told this parable with a question in mind for its hearers. “Listen to what the unjust judge says,” he concluded. “And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.”

It is interesting that justice is one of the first things we learn to cry out for as children. The desire that life be fair seems innate to our hearts and minds. In the parable of the persistent widow Jesus seems to suggest this instinct isn’t wasted. He graphically claims that we do not cry in vain and that our longing to see the world set right is worth following after with the resolve of one who won’t take no for an answer. Whether we cry out in desperation for the world around us or in need of mercy ourselves, Jesus’s seems to urge us not to let it go.

Yet often overlooked in this courtroom parable is the final question Jesus poses. He has assured the crowd that they will see justice. He then leaves them with a question. “However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Like the widow discovered in the parable, God will faithfully see to our deliverance. God mercifully exchanges our slips of guilt with declarations of pardon. Yet none of this assures that Christ will find faith throughout the land when he returns. The mercy extended to me at the courthouse hardly assures my faithfulness to traffic laws hereon out. Nor does it assure that my awe and respect will remain for the judge who pardoned me.

But it should. For God’s delving out of miraculous justice in a corrupt world and miraculous healing in a sick world is not merely a sign for me. God’s giving of mercy is a tangible sign that God is setting the world back to right—and mercifully, I am invited to be a part of it. My courtroom encounter somehow seemed all the more a gift because it wasn’t unique to me. Even small glimpses of God’s mercy are signs to stay alert to the miraculous gift of a God who hears a world in need and is at work even now in every corner. As it turns out, the child’s longing to see her world set right is answered in one who is a gift for the entire world. The vicariously human Son of God hears our pleas. He hopes for faith. He stands among us.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Story told in Luke 18:3-8.

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