I have a geek streak...and I visit dictionary.com a fair bit - so I typed in 'mercy' and found the following definition very interesting:
Mercy
By the atoning sacrifice of Christ a way is open for the exercise of mercy towards the sons of men, in harmony with the demands of truth and righteousness (Gen. 19:19; Ex. 20:6; 34:6, 7; Ps. 85:10; 86:15, 16). In Christ mercy and truth meet together. (Matt. 5:7; 18:33-35).
Easton's 1897 Bible
In Christ, mercy and truth meet together.
Another definition included the following - "leniency and compassion shown toward offenders by a person or agency charged with administering justice".
Truth....Justice....Mercy.
Obviously God knew something here. Why mercy instead of judgement?
Because something different happens with mercy.
At the moment mercy is granted...both the extender and the recipient know that the 'offender' actually deserved everything they were going to get (is that the truth piece?) and it is that truth that leads to redemption, changed behavior and in due course may allow mercy to be extended to others (justice?).
Up until this moment, I had never considered mercy as a catalyst. God has such a topsy-turvy way of doing business. The power is always in the most surprising place. If mercy is the catalyst, then it stands to reason that judgement is the opposite. Maybe that is why those we judge, usually do not change - neither do the hearts of those making the judgement.
I think about my own life and how reluctant I have been to extend mercy. We cling to judgement as if without it, we cannot stand firm. I'm learning that standing firm in that way, may mean standing alone.
God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows that mercy, in the end, will always be more effective in communicating His Truth than judgement. He also knows that it's one of the hardest things for us to learn.
3 comments:
This book I've been reading, Colossians Remixed, talks about how evil really is only conquered by the amazing and self-sacrificial love extended toward humanity by God.
Evil knows how to fight, it's prepared for that, but it's not prepared for willing suffering on the part of its opponent.
It seems that there's a link here. Mercy being the key to truth rather than judgement. I have something to roll around in my head for a while. Thanks, Katie!
In Prolegomena to Charity, Jean-Luc Marion goes into this idea of evil and judgement in detail. The crux of what he says is that evil is the passing on of a wrong done to us, in order to protect ourselves, or call ourselves innocent.
However, by passing this on -- by passing judgement -- what we are doing is passing on the evil. If I am accused of something, and I then accuse my accuser of something, or even accuse another person of something, in order to make myself innocent, then I am doing evil to another.
For Marion, it was Christ as a complete innnocent taking on the accusations and the evils without complaint, without accusation of an other -- christ absorbing those evils willingly -- that then breaks the power of evil.
And we as Christians are called to follow in his example.
We are called to absorb the accusations, the hurts, the evils done to us and to love those who do them.
Ouch!!!
Double ouch.
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