PURSUING HAPPINESS: Extending Mercy
Matthew 5:7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy”
Titus 2: 11 – 3:7
1. The Old Testament prophet Micah identifies three essential virtues for living a life pleasing to God. In 6:8 he states: “He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”
• Loving mercy. What a foreign concept mercy is in so much of our present day and age that appears bent on venom, vitriol, violence, and vengeance.
• As the spiral of terrorism and war escalates at a dizzying pace and the name and cause of God throughout much of the Muslim world is increasingly associated with the most horrendous acts of brutality and barbarism – now of course, Christians cannot exactly point fingers - we were guilty of their own warped understanding of God back during the Crusades of the 11th through 13th Centuries – however, the call for mercy right now seems like a futile effort and a lost cause. Who on either side of the conflict is willing to listen when revenge and retaliation are uppermost in the hearts and minds of so many?
2. We come today to the 5th Be-Attitude in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and as we have stated before, each of these beatitudes builds and expands on what has gone before. Here we have Jesus describing the character of the Christian – of what it means to be one of His followers and a member of the Church.
• We start by acknowledging our poverty of spirit – our spiritual bankruptcy and that attitude of humility opens the door to the Kingdom of God
• Next we mourn and grieve our lack of God’s life – we repent and seek His forgiveness and He showers upon us His mercy, forgiveness and comfort
• That non-defensive attitude before God – that meekness – in which we surrender the control of our lives into His hands - coming to Him with open and not grasping hands, makes us inheritors of all that is His.
• With God’s life beginning to form within us, we start hungering and thirsting for His righteousness – aligning our lives with His purposes and His agenda and in so doing, discover the satisfaction and fulfillment of our own purpose that is the result.
3. Now today, there is a bit of a shift of focus from our vertical relationship with God, outward horizontally to others.
• Because of our relationship with God, and out of our relationship with God, we deal with other people in a godlike way. God’s perspective and God’s passions now can become our own.
• And because each of us has been the generous and undeserving recipient of God’s mercy, we are moved by His indwelling Spirit to respond to others in the same way.
4. So what exactly is mercy and what is a merciful person like?
• Rather than give a series of definitions, I hope to paint a picture of mercy made up of a number of stories demonstrating merciful behavior.
5. Before we look at the picture, let’s briefly examine the frame. The frame of this picture and what gives shape to its contents is the mercy of God. Back in Exodus 25 God told Moses to make an ark for carrying the 10 Commandments of the Law. The top section or lid of the ark was to be known as “The Mercy Seat” – the Hebrew word for it is "kap-po-reth" and means “to cover” but the root of the word means “to pardon”, “to atone for” and “to cover” as in a debt.
• There were to be 2 cherubs covered in gold facing each other on either end of the mercy seat – with their wings touching
• The Ark was to be placed in the Holy of Holies inside the tabernacle and Aaron the High Priest was only to go in there once a year on the Day of Atonement with the blood of a sacrificed bull to sprinkle on the mercy seat to make atonement for his own sins and the sins of the people.
• God would meet the High Priest and speak with him from above the mercy seat
• The picture for us to hold in our minds here is how between God and His Holy, Just and Righteous Law there is a special place God has made for mercy.
6. So often people have tried to make a distinction between the God of the Old Testament and God as we have come to know Him in Jesus Christ – seeing in the Old Testament only a God of Law and Justice, of Rules and Regulations - but in Christ, a God of compassion and mercy, tenderheartedness and forgiveness.
• Well that is just not true. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. And the God who revealed Himself to Moses, is the very same one who made Himself known in and through Jesus Christ.
• In Psalm 86:15 David writes: “Thou O Lord, art a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”
• In the story of Jonah, the reluctant prophet to the wicked city of Nineveh, when the entire city heeded the word of the Lord through Jonah and repented in sackcloth and ashes, Jonah was ticked off with God and was actually hoping they would not listen and he would get to witness the outpouring of God’s wrath on these evildoers. Chapter 4 states: “1 But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. 2 He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."
• Just a thought: Do these sentiments of Jonah parallel any of your own for some other religious or ethnic or language group?
• Are there any others who you feel and believe deserve to get their "just deserts" and your sense of justice would be offended if God brought them to repentance and faith?
• Mercy prays not for God’s wrath and judgment but intercedes for God’s transforming love and grace.
7. In Genesis 45 we have the story of Joseph – now as Prime Minister of Egypt, revealing his identity to his brothers who had years previously in hatred plotted to kill him, then sold him as a slave to some Ishmaelite traders and told their aged father, Jacob, that he had been killed by a wild animal and who had subsequently endured many additional hardships in prison.
• Joseph could easily have had his moment of revenge and retaliation for all his brothers had done to him. He could have responded with “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”.
• He could even have just banished his brothers from Egypt and sent them home empty handed to die of starvation in the famine
• But instead he replied: "Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children." And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.”
• Like Joseph, mercy responds to the harsh words and evil deeds of others not with retaliation or resentment or refusal to forgive but by trusting that God in His timing is able to transform even the most painful of circumstances into a blessing for us as well as for those who right now oppose us and seek our destruction?
8. In John 13 we have the account of Jesus engaging in some strange behavior right in the middle of the Passover meal. The custom in those days was that when people arrived at someone’s home for a meal, a servant would be there to wash their feet before they reclined at the table. On this occasion there was no servant and they all just chose to go ahead with the meal with unwashed feet.
• During the meal, Jesus arose, laid aside his outer garments, and girded himself with a towel as a servant. He then took the basin of water and began to wash the feet of His disciples and dry them with the towel.
• They were stunned. Peter was horrified and even refused the service, arguing that it was beneath Jesus’ dignity for Him to perform such a lowly task.
• Jesus replied that only by Peter accepting the washing could he be a participant in Jesus’ ministry
• Once He had washed the feet of each one and returned to His position at the table, He said, “If I your Lord and Master can stoop to wash your feet, then surely you as my followers should be willing and able to wash one another’s feet. I have given you an example to follow and you will be blessed as you put it into practice.”
• Mercy is watchful, observant and alert to unverbalized needs in its midst. It observes the pain behind the smile, it notices the tear in the corner of the eye, it senses the fear and uncertainty in the brash and abrasive reply, it feels the loneliness in the loud, talkative and seemingly self-assured and it steps in to serve - on its knees, frequently without words and always without fanfare.
9. The stories of Scripture that illustrate mercy. Now let me share with you just two modern stories that further flesh out the character of the merciful.
• Richard Selzer in his book “Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery” writes these moving lines, "I stand by the bed where the young woman lies, her face post-operative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve. Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and altogether they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? The young woman speaks. ’Will my mouth always be like this?’ She asks. ’Yes,’ I say, ’it will. It is because the nerve was cut.’ She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles. ’I like it,’ he says. ’It is kind of cute.’ All at once I know who he is. I understand, and lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close, I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works."
• Understanding and tender love - there is no substitute. This is the stuff of real mercy.
• One last story from a nurse in an Emergency Department. It was a busy morning, about 8:30, when an elderly gentleman in his 80’s, arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He said he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 09:00 am. I took his vital signs and had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour before someone would be able to see him. I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound. On examination it was well healed. So I talked to one of the doctors and got the needed supplies to remove his sutures and dress his wound. While taking care of his wound I asked him if he had another doctor’s appointment this morning, as he was in such a hurry. The gentleman told me no, that he needed to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife. I inquired as to her health. He told me that she had been there for a while and that she was a victim of Alzheimer’s disease. As we talked, I asked if she would be upset if he was a bit late. He replied that she no longer knew who he was, that she had not recognized him in five years now. I was surprised and asked him:” And you still go every morning even though she does not know who you are?” He smiled as he patted my arm and said: “She doesn’t know me, but I still know her.”
• Mercy! Mercy! How like our Father we become as we allow His Spirit to flow in acts of mercy from us.
• In just a moment you will have an opportunity to experience again – perhaps at a deeper level than ever before – God’s greatest act of mercy in and through the death of His Son Jesus Christ, as you receive the bread, the sign of His wounded and broken body and the cup, the sign of His blood shed for the forgiveness of your sins.
• Whether you know Him or not – He knows you and extends His mercy to you.
AMEN.
