Mercy . . . . Mercy
November 2, 2008
Matthew 5:3-7
Does anyone who is over 30 years old remember what happened on March 24, 1989? When most of us struggle with what we had for breakfast this morning, this one is a real brain tester. It was a cold night off the coast of Alaska. The captain of the tanker barked orders to a second mate, the orders were vague, the night was black and before they knew what happened, the collision was disastrous. The tanker, the EXXON VALDEZ, had run aground in Bligh Reef, dumping over 11 million gallons of crude oil into one of the most scenic bodies of water in the world. Petroleum blackened everything in sight; beaches, otters, whales, birds, fish and more.
Another night none of us remember also occurred on a cold night, when this ship was speeding toward New York. The TITANIC was the unsinkable ship, hoping to navigate the iceberg infested waters, but no worry . . . then the unthinkable happened to the unsinkable. The scout spotted something in the distance and before you knew it the ship hit one of those icebergs and a gaping hole in the hull was opened. Instead of oil pouring out, it was lives.
These two collisions illustrate something I want to talk about this morning. Because in many respects these terrible collisions were mild when compared to the ones which occur in our lives. We’ve all been there. Someone doesn’t meet our expectations, promises are unfulfilled, we find ourselves rejected at seemingly the most crucial times.
The result? A collision of the hull of our hearts. The energy which escapes us is as black and ugly as the crude oil which escaped from the Valdez. Just like the water which was coated in black oil, our hearts, spirits, minds, our whole body becomes dominated by this darkness, which we call bitterness. It controls us, we can’t escape it, our joy is gone, and we feel suffocated.
This morning, let me ask you - - - do you have a HOLE IN YOUR HEART?
Maybe the wound is old . . . you were abused, you were rejected, a mate betrayed you, a friend turned their back on you, a business deal went bad . . . and now, after all these years, you remain angry.
Or maybe the wound is fresh. The person who owes you money drove past you in their new car, the promotion you hoped for was given to someone else, your career path is not what you once thought it would be, sickness has invaded your body, your best friends went for a long weekend and somehow they forgot to ask you, the children you raised seem to have forgotten about you.
You’re more than angry, you’re seething, you’re like a kettle filled with steam, about to blow its top. You’re ready to scream, to hit, to punish something, anything . . .
Part of you is broken, part of you is bitter. Part of you wants to cry, and part wants to fight. There’s a fire burning in your heart, it’s blazing and consuming. And now you have a decision to make . . . “Do I put the fire out or heat it up? Do I get over it or do I get even? Do I release it or keep it? Do I let my hurts heal, or do I turn my hurts into hate?
You are angry and what is eating you - is eating you up. You are filled with resentment. It has built an iron clad wall around you. Resentment is when you are stoking and poking and feeding the fire, stirring the flames and deliberately reliving the pain. You’re nursing a grudge, in a sense you feel power from it, because that anger is the source of your new found passion. Now you rejoice each time you can sling that sludge and mud at someone else.
So, let’s say you get even. Is it really going to make you feel that much better in the long run? If the person or situation you hate goes away, does it automatically make you feel better? NOPE! You still have to live with yourself. Without forgiveness, all you have left is bitterness. And that leaves you with a gaping hole in the hull of your heart. You can be like this gaping hole in the USS COLE. This was terrorist action. It can be nothing you did to promote your wound. On the other hand, it may be self-inflicted, like this Liberian Cruiser ship which hit something in the Antarctic Ocean, creating a hole in its hull, leading it to sink. Either way, not until we call the repairman, named Jesus, can we find healing.
And this is where we look at the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. In the 4th of the eight Beatitudes, Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy.” This is the only of the Beatitudes where you receive what you sow. The merciful are shown mercy.
In order to illustrate forgiveness and mercy, Jesus told a story in Matthew 18. There was a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. So he called one in who owed him about $30 million. Since the man couldn’t repay the king, the king was going to sell the man, his wife and children in order to recoup some of his money. The man fell at the feet of the king and pleaded for more time. The king was moved and canceled all of his debts. He was set free.
After leaving his meeting with the king, the man ran into someone who owed him about $30. He demanded the money from him. When he couldn’t pay, he had the guards put him in jail until he could repay his debt.
When the king heard about this he was furious and had this man brought to him, and he said, “You wicked servant, I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? 34In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.”
Could someone actually be forgiven of a debt of millions of dollars, then turn around and be unable to forgive a debt of a few dollars? Can a person really be set free, then imprison another person? We would like to think not. Yet, how many of us thank God for His grace and mercy on Sunday, then demand justice on Monday.
You see in this parable, the king is God; and Jesus is trying to teach us just how much God has extended mercy to you and I. He has given us so much, He even gave us His Son. According to Jesus, we then take this mercy and turn around and pervert that love, grace and mercy. In many respects we desecrate the table we came to just a couple of minutes ago, because we refuse to let go of the bitterness and anger which fills our hearts, spirits and minds.
You see, the word for mercy literally means “to get inside someone else’s skin.” It means we are to look at someone else who is hurting, someone else who may not even know they are hurting and we seek to be a brother or sister in Christ and walk along the journey with them. It means we don’t bail out when the going gets tough. It means we don’t make excuses for not being there for one another. It means we suck it up and we look at one another as if they had the face of Jesus.
Now, let me tell you that is not easy, not for any of us. Yet, that is mercy. It does not mean we condone sin, but it means we walk with one another on their journey, and when there is a need we offer ourselves to them. It means you look at that other person, maybe that person who hurt you, and you see Jesus in them.
It means you use the power, strength and courage God gives to you and you extend your hand to them. You look at that person with compassion, and you put yourself in their place as best as you can. You do your best to look at the world with their worldview; and when you do that, you still may not agree with their worldview, but you may be able to better understand and love them. And that is the key to mercy.
And sometimes when we extend mercy, we get slapped in the face. Because mercy is not just a thought or prayer. It is not just saying, “oh, I’ll pray for you” and walking away. It is not avoiding the person. Because you see, while the word mercy is a noun, to be merciful is an adjective. To be merciful is to be involved because it describes who you are. A merciful person is not a push over, just like being meek is not synonymous with weakness.
But, in first century Jerusalem mercy was difficult. To the people of the ancient world, mercy or compassion were not held in very high esteem. The Romans were hardly known for being kind and gentle. Slavery was perfectly acceptable; great pleasure came from sports that put men and women up against wild beasts, or that put men against one another to the death; people who committed crimes were treated with extreme cruelty even to the point of execution by crucifixion. It was not a very merciful world.
But, what about those of us who need to show mercy! Some of us ought to look inside ourselves and ask if we have a heart of flesh or a heart of stone. We need what God said to Ezekiel, 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. This statement from God to Ezekiel is desperately needed today. You see, God will remove that heart of stone. The heart that no longer feels, the heart that is filled with self-righteousness, bitterness, anger and hurt. The heart which has a hole in it, a heart which has been wounded over time.
And now, now is the time to stop the hurting, stop the pain. It’s time to allow God to bring healing to your heart, allow God to knock away the heart of stone, so our heart of flesh, our heart which is filled with God’s grace and mercy becomes revealed, so we can demonstrate God’s mercy, because we know what it is like to receive His mercy.
The great example of mercy - a mercy far greater than we can ever show, comes from God.
Think about the tremendous mercy God showed when He sent Jesus Christ into the world to rescue us from our slavery to sin. He saw us in our predicament. He saw our rebellion against Him, and our separation from Him because of our sin. He saw that and He didn’t run.
God took action . .. and His action is called MERCY!
In His mercy God dealt in a complete way with the legal sentence that hung over our heads -- the sentence of eternal death. He didn’t just overlook it or sweep it under the carpet. No, God remains just and righteous. However, MERCY caused God to act in the greatest of ways.
MERCY caused Jesus Christ to lay aside His glory, come to earth as a man, suffer and die for us so that we might be freed from our misery and eternal destiny, and we could be given the glory of membership in the family of God! That is the greatest and purest example of mercy. God became one of us. He crawled into our skin, to show us how to love.
Can you see it? Do you understand it?
A little boy had been warned, “Don’t go near the swimming hole, and whatever you do don’t get those clothes wet and dirty.” The little boy hurried off to school. But as he came home, and felt the warm sunshine, he could not help but stop by and look at his favorite summer spot. He got a little too close and fell in with his clothes on.
He went home with his head hung down in defeat. In those days they used a writing board and as he neared home he wrote these words with his little piece of chalk,
“Mom, I fell in the swimming hole. I am sorry.” When he got to the house, he pulled open the back door and stuck his hand inside with the writing board in it. His mother saw his hand and took the board from him. In an instant she was angry. She was thinking about ways to discipline his for his disobedience. Then, she peeked outside and saw him sitting down on the steps, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.
She suddenly felt a surge of mercy. She pulled up her apron and rubbed out all his words. She wrote one word herself, “FORGIVEN!”
The boy heard the creaking door open and saw his mother’s hand holding the board. He took it, read the one word and jerked open the door and ran to throw his arms around his mother with big tears running down his face. He had been shown mercy.
We’ve all been there. All of us who are saved have been there, done that! We came to our Lord when we had fallen in the devil’s swimming hole. When we wrote out our confession.
God wrote, Forgiven!
Now God calls on you and I to do something He has given to us to infinity and beyond. We are to treat others likewise. Is there some grudge you are holding against another? Is there some judgment you have made in unkindness and unforgiveness? You are hurting yourself, you are hurting your Christian witness, and you are hurting the body of Christ. Why not this very moment ask God to make you a merciful person - after all, those who show mercy will receive mercy in like measure!
