Your neighbor in heaven, Kaing Guek Eav

http://www.examiner.com/

Mitchell Sibley-Jett
Hartford Christian Examiner

June 19

As one who is still a fairly new convert to Christianity (only since 1996), I confess I am still a bit dumbstruck by the things that Jesus says. I guess by this point I should be inured to how radical He was, is, and will be in the future, but I’m not. I just can’t seem to get over the things that He says and does. Do other believers also struggle with this issue? I wonder. I sometimes find myself going back to re-read something He said, just to make sure I understood it correctly. For example, in Luke 23, Jesus says this to a criminal who’s about to put to death “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise” Did Jesus really say that? Did Jesus really grant this man a pardon (and an eternal one at that) to a criminal who in all likelihood had committed murder, rape, or some other egregious crime? The grace that Jesus gave this man was not warranted by any human measure of kindness, but granted by Him anyway.

I’ve been thinking on the very subject of God’s grace for today’s column, and so the question I raise is this; what are the limits of God’s grace? Does it have quantifiable limits? Can it be measured with some sort of heavenly micrometer or laser measuring device? Who are the recipients of this blessing, and who are not? Can the process of grace administration be understood to conform to some sort of pattern? Can we dissect it and understand it as we try to understand everything else? In a phrase, can we figure out grace?

I will say I do not understand grace. At its core, grace is a Godly blessing that successfully resists our feeble attempts to decode it. Grace can’t be understood by conventional human tools of deconstruction, as it was only a smear of protoplasm on a slide for some 8th grader student to gawk at. It is not. We cannot decipher grace. We cannot dissect it, take it apart sinew from tendon, muscle from bone, and come to sort of conclusion about how grace works, the how’s, the whys, and the when’s.

I do know something about grace and it is this; it’s an absolute miracle it shows up at all. I believe I’m using this word “miracle” in what I think is its proper Biblical context. It’s completely unlike the “miracle” shine you get when you apply some cleaner to your toilet bowl. For the man who found himself on a roman cross next to Jesus more than 2,000 ago, Jesus’ gift of grace was a miracle. It was undeserved, completely unexpected, and completely wonderful.

The second thing I know about grace is that it is ridiculously unfair. In fact, I would go even further and say it’s the quintessence of unfair. That’s what makes grace so great. If we review the rudiments of the aforementioned story, I believe you’ll reach the same conclusion. A man is being put to death for some horrific crime, and just because he asks, is given a last minute “pardon” by Jesus. How is that fair? If that man had committed murder, how would his victim’s family feel? I doubt they’d be pleased with this decision by Jesus to get him off the hook. How could Jesus dispense His grace so readily? How can Jesus grant such a blessing to a man who, perhaps only moved by his selfish desire to remain alive, asked Jesus for what only Jesus can give? That’s the ridiculously unfair part. That a wicked man received grace for no other reason than he just asked for it.

Let me introduce you to another man who asked Jesus for grace, and just like that unnamed man all those years ago, received something he most assuredly did not deserve. I want you to know this man, because if Jesus words are to be believed, you’ll be seeing him again soon. In fact, he’s going to be your neighbor in heaven for a very long time. This man’s name is Kaing Guek Eav, though his nickname has been “Duch” since he was a boy growing up in Cambodia. Duch was born in 1942, and as a young boy was a good student and was remembered by his teachers later as being especially gifted in mathematics. His teacher at the time noticed this, and encouraged him to pursue this further. In part because of this encouragement, Duch later became a teacher himself. At this time, Duch’s home country was undergoing great social and political upheaval. In response to these changes, Duch felt called to help the poor and alleviate some of the injustices that were so prevalent during this time. In 1970 Duch joined a political party called the Khmer Rouge.

This decision proved to be a fateful one. Over the next few years, as the situation in Southeast Asia grew ever-more volatile and the Vietnam War raged, Duch was put into positions of increasing responsibility for the Khmer Rouge. Later, he became the head of all the security forces. Duch’s God-endowed qualities of attention to detail, meticulousness, and his desire to please others became increasingly warped by the very group he thought would liberate his country. Instead, the Khmer Rouge brought hell to Cambodia.

As Duch’s responsibilities grew, he found himself the regime’s principal architect in protecting the state against its enemies, both real and imagined. In this capacity, Duch personally oversaw the torture and execution of over 12,000 men, women and children. Many of these people were tortured into confessing some “crime,” then their throats were slit, their skulls bashed open with hammers, or had the blood drained from the bodies. It didn’t matter if the prisoners were women, children, or the elderly; they all were murdered under Duch’s authority. The main prison where much of these killings took place was called Tuol Sleng. One of the people that passed through its gates during this period was Duch’s old school teacher. The very one who had commended him for his math skills. The very one who had recommended that he join the Khmer Rouge all those years ago.

As the war drew to a close, the Khmer Rouge began to loose power, and so Duch joined the communist party. He stayed in high positions within the government until the mid 1980’s when he disappeared. He dropped out of sight, and no one knew if Duch was dead or alive. In 1999, journalists tracked him down, now living in refugee camps, once again teaching mathematics. In 2007, Duch was arrested and charged with “war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and premeditated murder.” He is currently on trial for these crimes. One of the facts that came out during the investigative phase of this trial was that since the late 1990’s, Duch had become a Christian. Duch’s wife had been murdered in 1996, so perhaps this had some impact on his decision to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior.

If we accept at face value that Duch’s “conversion” is a genuine one, than we have to also conclude that his “pardon” from Jesus was also genuine. That is, Duch was given a “permanent-for-all-time-never-expires-get-out-of-hell-free” card by Jesus Himself. This “if” is, I’ll grant you, a BIG IF. The truth is that we may never know if Duch’s conversion was authentic, but God does. God knows everything, so if it’s a lie, it would be exposed about 1 billionth of a nano-second after Duch died.
But for the sake of argument, let’s say that Duch’s conversion was genuine. That he really did accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior, what then? If true, then Duch was granted this absolution based not on any deeds (or in Duch’s case, misdeeds) that he committed, but rather full acceptance of the perfect atoning death that Jesus did on our behalf. Jesus died for Duch, and even writing that seems so monstrously unjust. How could someone so perfect so lay down his life for someone so vile?
That is the scandal of grace; that Jesus who never ever made one single mistake, gave up his life in payment for the debt that sin requires us to pay for our misdeeds. Jesus died not for the good among us, but for the worst. Jesus paid the price for our mistakes, how fair is that? How fair is it that wicked people, just like Duch, get off the hook and receive a “forever” pardon?

To be sure, we want grace for ourselves, but in the same breath, we may wish that Jesus would deny it to others who we deem less deserving. But grace doesn’t’ work that way. We don’t get to decide who receives grace, only Jesus does. And thank Him for that! And if scripture is to be believed, Jesus grants His grace to all who ask. This bears repeating.., to all who ask. Returning to where we began, the condemned man asked for grace and absolution. Duch asked for them too. Both received it, though neither deserved it. Jesus welcomed Duch in His home, and because of this, will be our neighbor there for a very long time. Grace is so profoundly and eternally unfair. And amen to that.