His Nemesis Mine

The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.  (Isaiah 11:6).

                As I stood talking with two black men in the lobby of the Stratford Richardson YMCA, I saw a white police officer pass in through the doors.  He was in full uniform with pistol and flak jacket.  Context is funny.  Had I been in the Dean and Deluca on Tryon Street, I would have assumed he was after a Cobb Salad.  Here, I feared he was after something quite different.  The officer scanned the crowded lobby until he saw my little group.  He paused for just a moment and then walked directly towards us.  The resolve in the officer’s eyes led me to believe (profiler that I am) that one of the black men I was standing with might be in trouble, and I girded myself.  But, I was wrong.  When the officer reached us, he asked, “are you men here for the Bible Study?”

                We were in fact there for the Bible Study.  Amazed at the officer’s ability to ferret us out from a crowded lobby with only five seconds of observation, I asked “how did you recognize us?”   

“By these,” he said, pointing to the Bibles we three held in our hands.  Together we entered the room where other men were already seated.  Of the seven men gathered to study scripture that night, the number of men who had been in prison outnumbered the men who hadn’t.  An odd gathering in which the police officer found himself.  He turned to the man seated next to him and asked, “have we met?  You look familiar.”

“Well I’m sure you’ve arrested me.”  The man answered without rancor or irony—his tone that of a man describing something as mundane as the color of his car.  The rest of  us laughed nervously, which seemed to surprise him. 

“I’m serious.  If you’ve been a police officer in this city for any length of time, I’m sure you’ve arrested me.”  And he went on to tell us of a pre-salvation lifetime of criminality that was leagues beyond my suburban mindset to comprehend.  It was like listening to a man describe the plot of a movie that I would be afraid to even watch.  And, it was a tale that was jarringly disjointed from the man telling it, for it was impossible to reconcile the man’s story with his gentle demeanor.  The deeds were so dark and sour—but the man so light and sweet, that it seemed an impossibility.  I have to admit that I began to doubt his veracity. 

But the police officer next to him had no such doubts.  He suddenly leaned back and said, “I know this man.  He was my Nemesis.  It was my mission for ten years to root this man out the community he dominated.”  And he went on to describe the effect on the police of having to continually confront such a dangerous man.  The white officer verified every claim the black man had made about who he had been before he met Jesus.  “He could take a man out with one punch!  He could break handcuffs if we cuffed his hands in front rather than behind!”  The officer, experienced, job-hardened and armed, was still agitated to find himself seated unexpectedly next to his Nemesis.  For though it was clear that the man’s salvation had utterly transformed him, it must have been hard to forget who the man had been before he met Christ.  I imagine that the newly-converted Paul had engendered similar feelings in the men he had persecuted when he had been known as Saul. 

And then we did what we had come together to do—we studied the Word.  Ironically, we had planned to study the rarely read book of Philemon.  In his plea to Philemon on behalf of his repentant runway slave Onesimus, Paul concedes that Onesimus deserved punishment, for he “was once useless.”  But, not anymore.  For now, Onesimus had  “become useful both to you and me.  I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you and to me.”  Paul pleads with Philemon not to apply the full and justified measure of the secular law against Onesimus:  “if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.  If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me.”  No piece of scripture we could have chosen beforehand would have better applied to the unimaginable circumstances in which we found ourselves as we read it together that night.  Here was a man, who had once been criminally useless, seated next to a police officer who was the very representative of the secular justice system that existed solely to redress the very deeds from which the man was now repentant!   

Duty called the police officer from the Bible Study before it was over.  He shook hands with his former Nemesis and told us he couldn’t wait to tell his captain what had happened.  When the officer left the room, the man who had once broken handcuffs with his bare hands looked at us and said, “I think the Lord brought the officer here tonight to help him heal the wounds my actions may have caused in his heart.  How great our Lord is.”  A few days  later, the officer confirmed his former Nemesis’ interpretation.  He told me that he had awoken that morning with a brain full of excuses for not coming to the Bible Study.  But, during his daily prayers, he felt the Lord urging him otherwise.  He believed his obedience left Jesus “grinning from ear to ear!”

For a season yet this fallen earth remains occupied by the Enemy.  By Adam, we are born into sin, and in sin we would die but for the redemption offered by the blood of Jesus.  He alone offers freedom from this dark captivation, but we must consciously choose it.  Although it seems impossible to our human minds—for we are yet creatures of both flesh and spirit—the wolf will live with the lamb, and it will be a child that leads us to that blessed reconciliation if we are willing to follow Him.  Like Onesimus, we can choose by obedience to become useful to the Lord—or we can choose to resist and remain His Nemesis.  There is no third choice.