The Darkest Thing About Mark Hamill’s Post

Mark Hamill made Donald Trump’s possible death sound fun.

He wrote about disgrace and death as though they were scenes worth savoring. That is what struck me. Not just the anger, but the enjoyment.

The darkest thing in a moment like that is rarely the famous name attached to it. The darkest thing is the human heart pretending it can speak of another man’s end without trembling over its own.

“Judge not, that ye be not judged.” Jesus is not saying we should stop calling sin sin. The same Lord who said those words also tells us to judge rightly.

He is putting His hand on the secret pleasure people take in sitting above others and uncovering the itch to play prosecutor while your own indictment waits in God’s hand.

That was the religion of the Pharisees. Their opinions were sharp as fishhooks. They could spot another man’s flaw while their own sins lay buried under title and long familiarity with holy things. They were quick on other people’s failings, slow on their own and even took pleasure in discovering fault.

That spirit never stayed in the first century. It finds a home online today by wearing an actor’s wit or even sometimes a church member’s concerned tone. It speaks with such certainty about the ruin of others, while forgetting that its own words will one day be weighed by God.

Christ is speaking about the judgment of God. Every judgment you make is itself headed to judgment. Every smug dismissal…every sentence spoken from a proud heart will be reviewed on the last day. I believe our judgments themselves will rise as evidence.

That should make a man set his phone down.

Then Jesus gives us one of the sharpest pictures in the Bible. One man has a speck in his eye. Another man has a beam. The first man is hurting. The second man is absurd. Nearly blind, he moves in close to perform delicate surgery. He wants to fix what is small in his brother while a length of timber juts from his own face.

It would be funny if it were not so familiar.

One man rages at another person’s tone while lust is living comfortably in his own soul. Or a woman savors someone else’s humiliation while envy grows like mold behind the walls of her heart. Christ calls it hypocrisy. The man with the beam is a stage player, an actor, a hypocrite.

That is why a hateful post can become a mirror if you let Christ hold it up long enough. The danger is that you recoil with a clean feeling. You condemn contempt with contempt and you denounce self-righteousness while feeding on it.

Jesus does not forbid correction. He purifies the corrector. First cast out the beam. First go to war with your cherished sin. Then, with tears in your own eyes and mercy in your hands, help your brother with his speck.

Visible weakness does not disqualify a Christian from helping others. Tolerated sin does. A man at war with his corruption can still be useful. A man petting it cannot see straight.

Who are we to speak as though judgment belongs safely in our mouths? What gives us such ease in talking about another man’s disgrace as though our own hearts have never lied, never hated or never delighted in someone else’s fall?

The post may have come from Mark Hamill’s account. The seedbed for it grows in the common soil of Adam’s race. It grows in me and it grows in you.

Which means the only hope for proud judges is the gospel.

There is only one man who ever saw clearly. Only one man who could search hearts without a stain in His own. One man fit to condemn and when sinful men dragged Him through a sham trial and nailed Him to wood, He did not answer their hatred with the same poison.

Jesus Christ, the righteous Judge, stepped beneath judgment Himself. He carried the guilt of mockers and Pharisees who know how to talk holy while treasuring secret sin. At the cross, the beam in our eye was judged in the body of the Son of God. That is why there is mercy for people like us.

Come out of the gallery where you have been enjoying the spectacle of somebody else’s ruin. With your filthy tongue and your private satisfactions. Come before the Judge now, while mercy is still preached. To Christ, who receives sinners with nail-pierced hands and washes mouths that have spoken death.

Let Him break your pride and forgive your venom. He will make you tremble at your own sin more than you thrill at another man’s fall.

The world teaches us to enjoy judgment from a distance. Jesus Christ teaches ruined people to fear judgment and speak as men who know what it cost to be forgiven.

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