I have a confession. . . my guilty pleasure. I love Times New Roman.
Don’t hate me, though, please. I have reasons. Good reasons. Really.
When reading books or other long-form material, those wonderful serifs mean I don’t have to work as hard identifying words. These unconscious clues let the text go down as smoothly as yogurt (filling and full of protein).
Many other delightful, elegant, and functional serif faces are available like Bembo, Bodoni, Garamond, and Georgia. But Times New Roman stays out of my way. I don’t see it. I only see the text. I’m not distracted because it is so completely ordinary and therefore invisible.
For headlines and huge signs in public places—yes, by all means, give me Helvetica or Univers or Futura. These san serif faces are wonderful, authoritative and to the point. They get me where I want to go whether it is the exit, the entrance, or (most importantly) the men’s room.
When I first started in publishing almost fifty years ago, I knew almost nothing about typefaces until our designers started tutoring me in their nuances, their histories, their dos and don’ts.
Today, of course, we all think we are graphic designers. Since every word processing program comes complete with multiple typefaces (like Arial) and multiple fonts (like Arial Black, Arial Narrow, Arial Rounded and MT Bold). And if such a font isn’t included, we can just highlight and click bold or italic to meet our needs.
Having dozens or hundreds of options to choose from was just too much temptation for many. As an editor I often received manuscripts combining a riot of faces and fonts. What authors thought of as fancy or creative was plain distracting and ugly. Our friends at Apple and Microsoft had unleashed the untamed graphic designer in all of us.
Eventually folks caught on that simple was better. Less was more. Pick one typeface and go.
Not long thereafter I began receiving digital submissions, on a floppy disk (which came on the market about the same time as steam engines) or as an attached file. I liked that much better. Why? Because, you see, once I pulled up the manuscript on screen, no matter how carefully it had been laid out by the author, I could change it all to Times New Roman.
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photo credit: Pixabay-PublicDomainPictures
Yet our ruined state need not be permanent. Isaiah also tells us this condition will be reversed. A day is coming when “the deaf will hear the words of the scroll, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see” (Is 29:18). This theme is echoed through the New Testament as well. Yes, the punishment is intentional but not eternal. Its purpose is to get the attention of sinners so they do turn to God. 
I suddenly became acutely aware of people around me serving food, cleaning tables, maintaining equipment, and many more. Clearly, I thought, I have not appreciated such people enough or sufficiently expressed my thanks. They (along with other more obvious examples of first responders and medical staff) were putting their health on the line to serve me and others, to keep society functioning, even if it was at a reduced level.
In Lent we remember that all have sinned. None are righteous. As enlightened as I am, certain kinds of people infuriate me or repel me. That is not a morally superior response. That falls short. 
But there was one minority group that responded very differently to both plagues. They stayed in the cities. Rather than avoiding the sick, they cared for them. As a result of receiving simple food and water when the ill were too weak to look after themselves, many survived when others who were forsaken by their friends and families died at a much higher rate. Some of those in this special group of caretakers also contracted the disease, however, and died. Why did they do this, knowing the danger? Why did they act so differently than many of their neighbors? 
Israel was to openly accept people of every ethnic group and nation to Jerusalem as Jesus reminded them: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations” (Mark 11:17). We as Christians should also gladly receive people from all nations to our churches, our communities, and our countries. We can fulfill the Great Commission not only by going to all nations but also by encouraging people of all nations to come to us. In this way they can hear and see and experience the gospel in ways that may not be possible in their home nations, where Christianity is illegal or suppressed. This is what Christians do—what mission-minded Christians do. 
Though it was the Romans who hoisted Jesus on a cross, many Christians down the centuries have harbored anti-Jewish sentiment, labeling them Christ killers. Pogroms, persecution, cruelty, and the holocaust have been the terrible results.
At the cross Christ defeated these, disarming them and bringing them into submission (
One thing that ironically gives me a glimmer of comfort is that the Bible doesn’t attempt to answer those sorts of questions the way so many try. When Job made such a challenge to God, God did not respond with the kind of answers we or Job might want. Instead he says to Job, my wisdom is seen in how I made the immensities and intricacies of the heavens and earth. Can you trust my wisdom for everything you don’t see?
Jagged edges appear elsewhere too. A family member gets ill. We feel betrayed by a friend. Someone rear ends us. These and more pile up till we snap back harshly at those we love most. We fail to live up to our own standards of honesty, loyalty, charity.
The verb Rutledge frequently uses in her book to convey this action which justifies and makes righteous is to rectify. The world and all of us in it need to be rectified, to be set right.