I look at this blessing and I always hear this adage as an imperative virtue, especially among the Christian circle. But you look at this circle to see if it is lived out and I wonder if it's not one of the hardest statements ever given by our Lord, or at least the least popular of the Christian virtues. I wonder because it is so easy to say that we must be distributors of mercy, until we are actually demanded to do so, then the real challenge begins.
I think mercy is the one virtue that does not make sense given the wisdom of the world. Perhaps I can forgive and have mercy on my brother if he breaks my favorite toy. Perhaps. But how in the world can I forgive and have mercy on a plane high-jacker who kills thousands of innocent lives by running the plane into a building in New York? How in the world can I have mercy and forgiveness on the Nazi party who killed millions...millions of innocent people. It just doesn't make sense. It seems almost reckless.
Mercy doesn't always make sense, unless you look at the big picture. Unless we look at how much we have been shown mercy. It's like the story Jesus tells about the man who is in debt to a rich man (Matthew 18). He owes the dude like $5,000,000, is basically never going to pay him back which could mean he and his family could end up slaves to this man. Not a good financial situation. But the rich man pardons him. The man is obviously extremely ebullient, I mean who wouldn't be? But the next day he turns around to a guy who owes him like $5 from money he bummed off of him the other day and the guy can't pay it off so he has him thrown in prison. Then the master (million bucks man) finds out about this and says to the servant, "'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed."
Jesus then goes on to say, "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."
Mercy is one of the hardest virtues to distribute, but it is also the virtue that distinguishes us from the world. It doesn't make sense.
Some might say that perhaps it's reasonable to say that we shouldn't have to forgive any more than what we've been forgiven. But we are this man who has been just been pardoned from the eternal punishment. Our sin, which would have cost us our life, our souls, hell... was just paid for. How in the world can we turn to our brother who owes us $10 and hate him for it? or even $100 or $1,000,000? We say, "but you wouldn't believe what he/she did or said to me! It is unforgivable! You wouldn't believe the sin that he/she committed. Lying is one thing but murder? Adultery? Homosexuality? Abortion? Debauchery? How can I show mercy?"
And I can only image what God would say to us, "you don't know what you did to Me...you killed My Perfect Son. My one and only Perfect Son."
"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy."
-Eliot
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