After reviewing the facts, our governor uttered those words on Tuesday night, finalizing the fate of D.C. sniper John Muhammad by removing the last chance Muhammad had for a stay of execution.  For those of us living in the D.C. area at the time, Muhammad’s death brings back a lot of memories.

Executed for killing someone pumping gas at the Sunoco gas station across from Bob Evans, I can so vividly remember getting in my vanpool just minutes from the crime scene to learn about the news and then creeping by the large media contingent and crime scene control vans and then the scene itself, just feet away from me.

Before that, they were killings, close, but elsewhere.  After that, I too ducked in and out of stores and jumped in and out of vehicles at gas stations.  The sniper cut back on my driving a lot more than $4 gas ever did.  Turns out, money and life are valued differently, when push comes to shove.

That was the sentiment of former Montgomery County Police Chief, Charles Moose, a reassuring figure in the hunt for the sniper.  In an interview on Tuesday night, he said one of the two lessons he learned from the shootings was the “importance of life, and living life to its fullest”, and that in effect by putting himself in the shoes of the victims “who didn’t deserve to die”, his reaction was to “try and live a better life because of what happened”.

Eerily related sentiments to another execution, 2,000 years ago.

The ruling governor of the region, the one who had the authority to stay the execution, said, in essence, I decline to intervene.  Of course the key difference was that Pilate had found the facts to be that the Accused was, in fact, innocent.  I wash my hands, Pilate said, but he might have well as said, I decline to intervene.

He didn’t deserve to die.  His execution wasn’t because He had committed a crime.  It was because you and I have.  Crimes against God. Where His law is broken.  And dishonored.  And stepped on.  And justice must be served, if there is to be such a thing.  But the wrong man was convicted, and sentenced, and tried.  Accordingly, the governor declined to intervene, and the justice that was served seems so unjust.

I drove past the Sunoco station and saw the blood still lying there.  I can get my mind around executing someone who killed others.

But getting my mind around someone being executed who was nowhere near the scene of the crime - and everyone knows it - is a lot more difficult.

Scripture says “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  That concept of giving your life for another is a little easier to stomach when you think of it in the positive like that.  Like someone voluntarily stepping in to take the place of someone they knew.  A parent throwing a kid out of the way of a moving vehicle.  An officer taking a bullet for his colleagues.  A soldier jumping on a grenade for his comrades in arms.  Noble.  Praiseworthy.  Honorable.

But standing trial for someone else who won’t even talk to you in the first place?

Going to court and hearing the facts and knowing that You are completely innocent?  Listening to the prosecution lie about Your actions?  Hearing the crowd outside the courtroom scream for Your death?  Keeping Your mouth shut when You know who really did it, who the real perpetrators were?

Taking 40 lashes and wearing sharp thorns on your heads, both bringing Your blood to the surface?  Wincing, perhaps shouting in pain as spikes hammered through Your hands and feet?  Gasping for air as You suffocated on Your own fluids, unable to lift Your chest anymore to breathe as the exhaustion in Your muscles and the pain on Your back - from rubbing Your wounds up and down on the cross - conspired together to make Your body just give up trying to lift itself for that next breath? Begging for mercy, not justice, when Time had finally arrived, and was fulfilled?

Surely there is no greater love here on earth than someone laying down his life for his friends - but there was one time when even greater Love was displayed, when Someone laid down His innocent life, for the guilty.  When Jesus was executed, because of my crimes.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  But I do, like Paul in Romans, I know exactly what I do.  Still He uttered that, “Father, forgive them”.  He did more than lay down his life.  He took up His cross.  And was executed.

“Accordingly, I decline to intervene.”  The sad words most of us utter when confronted with the facts of Jesus death.  Chief Moose’s reaction to someone dying who didn’t deserve to was sober.  He considered how important life really is.  And it made a difference.  He let knowing the facts, that someone innocent died, change him, make him a better person.

Won’t we?

“But God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  Romans 5:8 (NASB)