I only just finished watching a documentary about the infamous "Co-ed Killer", Ed Kemper. At the end of it, one of the people who'd once interviewed the serial killer had to admit that there is a possibility that Kemper will one day be in Heaven.
That's tough for me as I stated in the comments.
At the very end of this, I had to agree that Ed Kemper will be in heaven one day. That he was so horrible and committed such horrific crimes doesn't mean that he can't ask for and receive the Lord's forgiveness. This was (and sometimes still is) one of the toughest things for me to comprehend when I asked for forgiveness. I've never done anything truly horrible, but I was only "moral" and "good" by the world's standards. Without God's grace, I would not have a place in heaven any more than the worst killer. It's not levels of sin, but simply sin. It's not a matter of "good", "bad" or otherwise; it's a question of forgiveness but one has to want it as ask for it. That will never be easy for me to understand but there it is.
And that is a difficult thing to understand. My immediate thought about killers like Kemper is that they belong in Hell. However, I have to always stop and remind myself of something harsh: if I had been a victim of Kemper's before I came to the Lord, I would have ended up in Hell while Kemper still had a chance at salvation.
That's kind of cold, isn't it? Cold like ice water being thrown in the face of all our human arrogance.
I've never done anything exceptionally mean or horrible or hurtful. I've never been a "bad" person. But none of that would have saved me had I died before I came to the Lord, asking forgiveness.
The truth isn't always as palatable as we want it to be. Truth does not conform to us - it just is. God is Truth. He is Justice. And that grates on a lot of our fleshly hubris.
One of Kemper's victims was just fifteen years old. A beautiful, talented child. Where is she spending eternity? Kemper himself is, at this moment, still alive in his imprisonment. How foreign to our minds that he might be freer than some of the rest of us.
Truth is truth. We can't haggle with it. We cannot bully it into being what we want it to be. Truth is truth. Period. And that is such a hard thing to comprehend sometimes.
Peace
--Free
