Rich Dixon is helping us think about powerful, active, love.

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Now we walk with Jesus toward the cross and an empty tomb, into God’s plan to set things right.

Last week we looked at the gap between accountability and justice. I wondered if we know what we’re looking for when we seek justice.

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When I first learned about child sex trafficking, I wanted immediate accountability. Heavily armed Special Forces. Kick down doors, gently carry children to safety.

Drag the criminals directly to jail. The traffickers, pimps, “customers,” and corrupt political enablers. Everywhere it happens, whatever it takes.

Now I know Jesus cares about those kids more than I can possibly understand. He could end the problem immediately and violently, just as He told Peter in the garden, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”

He asks us to join a different sort of Special Forces.

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As followers of Jesus, we work through Project Rescue to seek justice for Saloni and the other kids at the Home of Hope. We want them to know they’re loved, accepted, and valued, that they can follow their dreams and become the young women and men God designed them to become. As far as possible, their staff seeks to set things right by allowing them to live in hope and freedom.

They’re able to rescue kids because they do the difficult, often dangerous, long-term work of building no-strings-attached relationships with victims and traffickers in the nasty red-light district.

Love your neighbor. Even those you don’t like. Even those who belong in jail.

Of course society ought to provide better systemic accountability for criminals, traffickers, and corrupt officials. But accountability isn’t justice. Accountability can’t set things right.

Only love, only Jesus, can do that.