Jul 23, 2017

Follower of Jesus (28)

Blessed are the merciful,

For they will be shown mercy.

Matt. 5:7

Ahh, to be merciful! This is so obvious that we wonder that it made it to the level of a beatitude – the basic attitudes that define a God-person in the language of Jesus. Why did Jesus believe that the attitude of mercy rates among the top marks of a person of God? Oh yes, we talk about the mercy of God, but we believe even more strongly in the guy (yes, male) sitting there with a big book gleefully noting our times when we failed to meet the several thousand “do nots” that our religions spell out for us, ready to zap us when ever possible if we fail  to follow any of a large set of rules.

First of all, we have to recognize that to be merciful is how defines God Itself. 1 John 4:8 states: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” Who does not love their own children; no matter what they have done; our hearts swell when we meet them and overflows with love for them. We show mercy to our own because we love them; and since God is Love personified, the mercy of God is fundamental with the nature of God.

The nature of mercy is made clear when Jesus was hanging on the cross and cried out: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34). This cry from Jesus, while in extreme pain, is the fundamental statement of mercy. “They” includes all of us, and we do not know what we are doing. We blithely hurt others without realizing what it is we are doing. Our actions, and even our thoughts, do not show what we are called to become: to be that loving face of God, gently reminding all that we are the image of God being called into the likeness of God, as Genesis 1 called us to be.

 

The beatitudes are not only a guide to our lives; they are guide to the very nature of God. The mercy of God is unfathomable to us humans, for we find the giving of mercy to even those we love often difficult, let alone to be merciful to our enemy. The cry of mercy from the cross was not for the sake of Jesus, but to paint the picture for all of humanity of the depth of the love of God – beyond what any of us can conceive. This cry can be considered the principle purpose of Jesus life: as strange as it may seem, to die in great pain while extolling mercy and love for all of us. Nothing can stop the love of God for us, showing us that Your love has no bounds, and nothing we can do or think will lessen the love of God for us, or the depth of mercy in that love.

Perhaps the culminating purpose of the life of Jesus was to illustrate all his words that he spoke over the three years of his public ministry in those words “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” God had spent at least the 70,000 years since modern humans appeared working up to this moment of revelation. All of the Old Testament illustrates the developing realization of the love of God, culminating in the New Testament, and to me specifically culminating in Jesus’ cry from the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” What more powerful statement of the love of God could be stated.

We are to be not just the image of God, which is ours by our creation, but to become the very likeness of God, that candle in the dark, the light that brings the love of God to our world that is in so much pain.

That likeness is mercy, to be merciful.

Meditation

O Font of Wisdom, fill me with Your grace and mercy, so that I may be Your compassionate face to our world that is in so much pain. I bow in gratitude for all You have opened my eyes to see. Grant me the wisdom to see Your face in all that I meet, so that I may be Your font of love. You have blessed me over and over, filling my life with love and life abundantly. Your beautiful world and universe sing of Your wisdom over and over until it fills the heavens and all I see. My heart sings in the beauty of life, and I am so grateful for this breathtaking world of Yours. I thank You for all that is, and this opportunity to experience Your likeness in all that exists.