By Jared Harding Wilson
In my previous post, I shared how the Bishop’s mercy sparked the transformation of Jean Valjean. I have always loved a good redemption story—whether it’s Ebenezer Scrooge transforming from a cold miser to a man of charity, Darth Vader finding his humanity at the very end to save his son, or even Edmund Pevensie being ransomed from the White Witch. These stories move us because they mirror the greatest redemption story in the universe: the Atonement of Jesus Christ. The truth is, not one of us can be redeemed or saved into heaven without Him; we are all in need of that ultimate grace.
But if the world were filled only with “Javerts,” there would be no redemption at all. In Javert’s mind, change is simply not possible. While Valjean worked every day to become a new man, he was being hunted by this shadow that refused to see anything but the past.
The Man Who Could Not Forget
Javert is often seen as the villain, but Victor Hugo paints a much more complex picture. Javert wasn’t a man of malice; he was a man of “terrible duty.” To Javert, the world was binary: you were either a man of the law or a criminal. There was no middle ground, no growth, and certainly no redemption.
He spent decades digging into Valjean’s past, obsessing over a nineteen-year-old crime. He didn’t care that “Monsieur Madeleine” had built a factory that saved a whole town from poverty. He didn’t care that Valjean had become a father to the orphaned Cosette or a man who gave his wealth to the poor. To Javert, once a thief, always a thief. He looked for the bad until he was blind to the good.
The Roots of Judgment
Why was Javert so rigid? Hugo gives us a heartbreaking clue in his backstory. Javert was born in a prison; his mother was a prostitute. In the eyes of the law back then—and even in some harsh eyes today—she was a “sex offender,” a social pariah.
Javert hated his own origins so much that he spent his life trying to outrun them by becoming the ultimate enforcer of the law. He looked at his own mother with the same disdain he showed Valjean. But I often wonder: How would Jesus have seen her?
In the Gospel of John, we see the Pharisees dragging a woman caught in the act of adultery into the public eye—shaming her, exposing her, and demanding she be stoned according to the law. Jesus didn’t join in the mud-slinging. Instead, he turned the mirror back on the accusers: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7). He focused on the hearts of those trying to destroy her, not on the mistakes of the woman herself.
The Power of Letting Go
Sometimes, those who sling mud and obsess over the pasts of others are acting out of their own unhealed trauma. As Proverbs 11:13 warns, “A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter.” There is a unique kind of pain that drives a person to try to pull others down. When I see people focus on the “old” versions of others, I don’t feel anger as much as I feel a deep compassion. What must it be like to carry that much weight?
I recently heard a story about a woman who had survived a horrific assault—a tragic rape. Instead of living in bitterness or allowing herself to be defined as a victim, she chose to visit prisons to speak directly to sex offenders. She didn’t go there to shame them or demand an eye for an eye; she went to tell them how proud she was of them for getting help and choosing to live a good life. She shared her heartfelt love for them because they were choosing what is right. She understood a truth that Javert never could: that lifting someone up with love is the only way to truly heal a heart and a society.
Silencing the Inner Javert
The hardest part of this journey hasn’t been facing the “Javerts” in the world—it has been facing the Javert in my own mirror.
For years, I have been my own harshest judge. I have dug up my own past and used it to tell myself I didn’t deserve a second chance. I have been “the man who could not forget.” But like Valjean, I’ve had to learn that holding onto that shame doesn’t make me a better person; it only prevents me from doing the good I am meant to do today.
We are all on this ride for such a short time. We don’t know how many days we have left to be a light. So, I’m choosing to let go of the stones. I’m choosing to believe—for myself and for you—that a person can change, can heal, and can live a life of profound goodness despite a broken beginning.
Have you ever struggled with being a Javert to yourself? How did you learn to trade judgment for mercy?
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