Baseball season has begun, so I tuned in to the first Braves’ game. They were playing the Mets in New York. Before the game the announcer asked for a moment of silence to honor some persons who had died in the past year. Among those named was former New York city cop, Steven McDonald. The announcer noted that he had been shot in the line of duty and paralyzed for the rest of his life.

Oh, but that is only the context for the story of Steven McDonald. In 1986 at the age of 22, McDonald had stopped three teenagers to question them about a stolen bike. One of them, Shavod Jones, pulled out a gun and shot him three times.

After he was rushed to the hospital, the surgeons told his wife that he would be paralyzed for the rest of his life. She was 23 and three months pregnant. Six months after the shooting, Patti Ann gave birth to their son, Conor. At his son’s baptism, McDonald publicly forgave the young man who had shot him. Later reflecting on what he had done, McDonald said,

I wanted to free myself of all the negative, destructive emotions that this act of violence awoke in me–the anger, the bitterness, the hatred. I needed to free myself of those so I could be free to love my wife and our child and those around us. I often tell people that the only thing worse than a bullet in my spine would have been to nurture revenge in my heart. Such an attitude would have extended my tragic injury into my soul, hurting my wife, son and others even more. It is bad enough that the physical effects are permanent, but at least I can choose to prevent spiritual injury. (Plough Quarterly, Spring 2017, p. 13)

McDonald spend the rest of his life–some 30 years–promoting the importance of forgiveness.

I call this counter-cultural. In America today, the majority of citizens (including many, many Christians) believe more in retributive justice than in mercy and forgiveness. In promoting the death penalty, they refuse to follow the example of Steven McDonald. And more importantly, the teaching of Jesus who clearly disavowed the ancient law of retribution–an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and a death for a death. (Leviticus 24:19-21 and Matthew 5:38-48)

If I ever face an experience as painful as that of Steven McDonald, my prayer is that I will follow his example and the teaching of Jesus Christ rather than our present American culture. Jesus calls us to forgiveness over vengeance.