Matt. 5:7; John 8:1-10-“Mercy is the Medicine”-2/22/15
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will obtain mercy.” Seems simple does it not? Yet these words, like the others we have been studying in the beatitudes are profound.
Often the violence and hatred that plague our world today, can be compared to a mighty train, that does not seem to be easily stopped, yet, often it start with one act of mercy that can flip that switch and divert the train of strife away from disaster.
One flip, one act of kindness, can make all the difference. Blessed are the merciful, so what is mercy you may ask?
It is love with legs on it, love that grows hands and works. It is love expressed in action.
God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.
Divine mercy writes in the sand.
Yet this is not enough for the mob, so they keep questioning him, “what do we do Jesus, what do we do?”
Divine mercy answers.
Jesus says to them, “Let any one of you who has never sinned be the first stone-thrower.”
See, the law said that any time someone was to face this capital penalty, it was to be carried out by someone who had a clear conscience before God.
None of them did, none of them could claim to be perfect, so they now found themselves accused and guilty, and the oldest and wisest all the way down to the young and restless, began to move out, one by one, until all was left except Jesus, and here we find some more irony.
The ones who want to judge and have no right to, are all dispersed and gone, and the One who has the right to judge and does not want to remains.
Jesus wants to show them and us, that none of us are perfect, and none of us have the right to look down our noses at anyone. This is different from God’s holy justice. We talked about this a bit last week.
We can and should desire justice on God’s terms while realizing it is He who judges not we. God’s role is to judge, our role as His followers is to show forgiveness and compassion where we can.
If view of God’s love, and the fact that He was merciful to us, we too ought to show mercy to one another.
Those who know the mercy of God, give mercy. Those who don’t know the mercy of God, cannot give for they don’t know what it really is.
We don’t show mercy in order to earn mercy from God. We show mercy because we have been given mercy by God.
The more we give mercy, the greater we experience God’s mercy, and the more we can give to others, and the more we experience, and it is a beautiful circle
Mercy comes with an attitude of thankfulness. Because you have received God’s mercy, use the gratitude to leave your sin behind and never to repeat it.
God offers us all mercy. So that we can both show mercy to others, and also strive to go and sin no more.
It is hard to live a life that God calls us to live. Temptation hunts us at every turn, but one of the best ways I have found to fight against it, is to be thankful to God for the gift of mercy and love. When we let that attitude of thanksgiving be our motivation to not sin, it gets easier not to.
Being thankful to God is the key to striving to be more like Jesus in ever way.
And it is this divine mercy switches the tracks and deters the train of never-ending violence that hurts our world today.
To be a part of God’s kingdom, you must follow in the example of the King, showing mercy in a world obsessed with vengeance.
Mercy is love set in motion. God has shown us mercy, and therefore calls us to show mercy to others.
No deep pondering, no confusion, it is just that simple. Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy. AMEN