16. 11. 22. At around 10PM, I was walking home from a church meeting with some friends. While we were talking, suddenly a young man, no more than 20 years old, came up from behind us holding a gun. He looked nervous and afraid, like he really didn’t want to be doing what he was doing. He kept repeating, “Telephone, telephone!”, signalling us to hurry up and pass him our phones. I froze. The first thing Joshua told me about Brazil is if I ever got mugged, always give what they’re asking for or they will shoot. I immediately gave the man my cellphone. Then my friend Ester gave hers. At that moment, I heard and saw a police car turn onto the street. The young man fled, our phones in his pocket. A car was chasing the police car yelling, “Run! Run!” About 5 seconds later, I heard a series of about 10 gunshots go off down the street. My heart was racing.

We were instructed by the police to stay on the premise until the police dealt with the robbers. It turns out there were 3 men working in collaboration, the young man I saw and 2 of his buddies in the car. One of them had been shot in the face, another in the arm, another in the leg. The first one died. I gasped when I heard this. The police heard me and said, “Why, do you pity him? He went where he deserved.”

A group of 3 male students approached us and asked if we had been mugged as well. They had been mugged minutes before us, their phones and watches taken. 5 of us – the 3 guys and my friend Ester and I – were taken to the police station to give our testimonies and have our goods returned. We waited all night, until 6AM. The bureaucracy of it all was almost worse than losing my phone. Finally, I was handed back my iPhone7, stained with the young man’s blood and told I was free to go home. 

It’s within hours of coming home from the station. A lot of thoughts cross my mind. “Thank God Dani was not with me at that time…I wonder if the one that died was the boy I saw…I wonder what situation he was in to have done something like this…I wonder how his mother will feel when she hears of his death…I wonder how my mother would have felt if it was me…Thank God for the police…but why so violent? Was this all because of an iPhone 7? 

I don’t think we can point to a single source of the problem. Sin taints the whole picture: the desperation, anxiety, and greed that led such a young man to be ready to kill for a phone, against his conscience. The sense of disgust that led the policemen to shoot the boy multiple times and then joke about it. Sure, each might have had their reasons – the boy was born in unfortunate circumstances, probably had an unstable and lonely upbringing, was stuck in the system, hooked on drugs, and just needed some way to get more. The police — in the name of order and progress and peace — had to do away with the criminal, even if it meant death. But if reason is all we have, it’s not enough. There will be always another “reason” to kill.

I think of my own desire to win fights. I have a sense of justice, righteousness, and need to make my point. To the end. And even when I get the other side’s reluctant concurrence, I need to brag about it. And if I lose, I’ll start another fight about the injustice of that fight. It never ends. The ego is a difficult thing to kill, but it’s the source of all conflict. The hunger to win makes everyone lose. 

“Where sin increased, grace increased all the more.”

There is hope in the gospel. In a world full of sin, Jesus overcame by the cross. In a sense, he won by losing. As he stood there, mocked by the religious and political leaders, he was as silent as a lamb. He didn’t try to prove his perfection, even though he was the Son of God. He lay down his rightness and took the blame, unto death on a cross. How pathetic he must have looked there, dangling naked and drenched in his own blood. “You call yourself the Son of God?” His enemies said. “Come down from the cross and save yourself!” The temptation. But he didn’t yield to ego, he stayed there knowing that only if he obeyed to the death would sin die once for all. Only if he died could we all win.

The solution is to kill the enemy. The enemy is self-ego. True victory is to yield to God and forgive. I thank God for the cross that saves me from my own ego. His grace fills the gap where pride and fear could linger. I walk away from this incident not stained by trauma or confusion but with joy because of the hope of the resurrection. I am reminded that I win only by living (and dying) through the cross, the only power to change.