Imagine if someone dressed like this showed up on your doorstep.

Would you be intrigued? Would you want to know more? Would you wonder how in the world the person was walking around with a blindfold over their eyes?

Chances are good that if you’ve ever been in a courtroom you’ve seen an image called Lady Justice. According to Wikipedia, Lady Justice is an allegorical personification of moral force in judicial systems. Her attributes are a blindfold, to show impartiality, a balance scale, to show how the punishment must fit the crime, and a sword, to show that justice must sometimes be meted out by force.

But how does all this relate to Lady Justice showing up at your doorstep?

Justice is topic that all people naturally care about. So I think it would serve as a good discussion starter for a whole new Christian evangelism program. Here’s how it would work. Christians will dress up as Lady Justice, complete with blindfold, scales of justice and sword, then go door to door to talk to people about Christianity’s unique approach to justice. (It might be wise for Christians to do this in pairs so that one person can serve as a guide to the blindfolded Lady Justice!)

The conversation would start with a focus on the scales of justice. We all want balance, not only in our justice system but in our everyday lives. We all agree that the punishment should fit the crime. But is anything in life ever totally in balance? And what should be done when things get out of balance? When things get out of balance is it up to each person to restore balance themselves? When should the government step in with its big old sword?

The unique thing about the Christian approach to justice is that, whenever we get things out of balance, the Lord steps in to restore the balance. That is what he did when he died for us on the cross. By our sins we had gotten way out of balance. Throw in the reality of death and everyone sees how totally out of balance things are. There is nothing we could do to restore the balance so Jesus stepped in and died for us and rose again to restore the balance.

This is how Paul describes it in 2 Corinthians 5:17-19:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. [18] All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; [19] that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. (ESV)

That is not to say that Christians don’t care about doing justice. We don’t just sit back and let the Lord handle every case of injustice in the world. No, because the Lord has restored balance in our lives, we then want to help others achieve balance in theirs.

Some Christians advocate placing copies of the Ten Commandments in our courtrooms. I prefer lady justice because she reminds us that in all legal efforts the goal is keep things in balance. And only in Christ do we reach the ultimate balance through the forgiveness of our sins.