The Power of Mercy

The power of mercy.

Offense is at the heart of our world events at the moment.  It is screaming out in conversations about the Middle East. 

Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me (Ps 57:1a, NIV).

Offense is at the heart of our world events at the moment.  It is screaming out in conversations about the Middle East.  Yelling for a reaction.  Crying out for people to take sides.  Insisting on a reaction and revenge.

Personally speaking, several years ago, I spent a bit of time living in the Holy Land and The West Bank.  Trying to understand the divisions.  The bitterness.  The years of resentment.  I intentionally put myself there.  Living with a family in a suburb of Bethlehem.

The situation is off-the-charts painful.  Wrought generationally with suspicion and faulty thinking.  There is so much anger.  Offense is everywhere.

The day I left the family, with tears in his eyes, one member pleaded, “Please, when you return to the West, tell them we are not all terrorists.”  In many ways, I think this statement says it all.

What’s missing, which is often missing in any conversation saturated by offense, is mercy.

What is it?

In short, think of mercy like this, receiving something we don’t deserve.  It can be kindness, understanding, listening, compassion, forgiveness, or grace.  The New Oxford American Dictionary on my computer defines it this way, “Compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.”

In Jesus’ day, as in our own, being offended was a daily occurrence.  Accepted behavior.  Even expected.

The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in an act of adultery. They stood her in plain sight of everyone and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery. Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating so they could bring charges against him.

Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt. They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, “The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone.” Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt.

Hearing that, they walked away, one after another, beginning with the oldest. The woman was left alone. Jesus stood up and spoke to her. “Woman, where are they? Does no one condemn you?”

“No one, Master.”

“Neither do I,” said Jesus. “Go on your way. From now on, don’t sin” (John 8:3-11, MSG).

Where is offense found in this encounter?

Is mercy there?  Where?

How might Jesus’ mercy make a difference in your life this week?

In what relationship do you need to experience it?

In what relationship do you need to extend it to someone else?