open plea

April 21st is the date before the judge. Eric will plead guilty and will sit for a summer in county jail awaiting sentencing. He could get 20 to 40 years, given what the DA is requesting. He could go to trial, get destroyed, and spend the rest of his life in prison. He could plead guilty, take the DA's deal and go to prison for 20 years and a few more. Or he can make an open plea, take his chances with the judge for a lesser sentence. He says he's throwing himself on the mercy of the court, given that his priors and his past are non-violent, drug related. I am amazed at his kind of surrender to that. I'm not sure I could do that. I'd want a lawyer to get me less time. Instead he puts his future in the hands of one judge. Will he show mercy?
Eric wants a chance to tell his story. He's even writing a book in prison about his life. It's cathartic, real, and inspired by his sobriety. He's written 180 pages. Of course, he lives in jail where productivity is measured by how few fights broke out in a given week. Eric has made some bad choices in his life. Why? Why do people do what they do? Why did Eric, knowing what he knew about his own siuation and his own weaknesses, exercise such horrible judgment 18 months ago? The reasonable thing to do would have been to call his parole officer, connect with someone who cared, and stay clean enough to stay rational enough to not steal a car, rob some stores, and shoot enough heroine and cocaine in his arm to kill anyone else. He was not reasonable. He went the other way, the path of destruction.
We asked ourselves two questions; why do people commit crimes? And why is Eric still alive? He's been in hell. he's hit the bottom, the pit of self-despair, self-loathing, and selfish pleasure seeking? He has been hopelessly hurting and helplessly waiting for deliverance for a long time. So we read Ephesians 2, "You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desire of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. but God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ---by grace you have been saved---and raised us up with him..." Wow, Paul. You nailed it. Dead, but made alive with Jesus. A cleaned-up mess. A disaster that has experienced relief. Living in that new knowledge of how God has rescued us from our own hells, he canmake an open plea for mercy.
So the book he intends to write and publish is meant to reveal a raw truth about the human condition. It is that all of us are broken, flawed, hurting, hungry, and capable of destructive behaviors. And that we need to be saved or we perish. Salvation becomes real when you're in hell, when you need help, when you are in pain, when you are depressed, alone, imprisoned in your own body and mind.
I asked Eric about the big risk he is taking in an open plea. What if the judge gives him more time than the DA is asking? What if his risk is a fool's errand that will reap a fool's reward? What if he won't leave prison? His son will be five in August. He will grow up with a father in prison. What will be the implications of that for Eric's son? It is complicated. All you can do is surrender to it. If he could control the outcome, predict it, or avoid it, he would. But he can't. So he goes before the judge with an open plea. Don't we all? We face GOD everyday with an open plea. I wake up. I'm alive today. I'm given another chance. I deserve wrath. I'm disobedient. I'm not living a life consistent with the way of Jesus. And yet, I believe that GOD is rich in mercy and imputes onto me the love God has for a son. By grace. freely given, no strings. because of who God is and how God chooses to be toward me. Not because of what i've done, what improvements I've made. And God does the same for Eric, in or out of prison. Will God rescue Eric from the criminal justice system? Can we pray for his release? Eric is doubtful of prayer's affect on his sentencing. Can God persuade the judge? Or is God's work saving Eric, even while he is serving out his sentencce, more important than whether God miraculously gets Eric released earlier? What is salvation? May God be gracious with Eric, with his family, and with all of us. May we make our open plea everyday trusting in God's unending mercy given through Jesus. He took the place of a criminal named barabbas, in order that a criminal might be set free. Barabbas means "sonof a father". Aren't we all children of a parent? Is Barabbas "everyman"? Is Jesus judged in our place? Is not his execution, meant for us? What if we lived in that knowledge, within the beauty of that grace?