Oh, Mercy!

As Lent approaches, I've been thinking and praying about the word mercy.

I spent most of the morning yesterday exploring what the Bible says about mercy. With the help of an online concordance (which tracks every occurrence of a word in scripture) I looked up all the instances of 'merciful,' 'mercy' and 'mercies.' There are a ton. I wrote out 8 pages in my little book, and that was only what I viewed as the greatest hits.

Here are four preliminary thoughts.

1. In the Old Testament, mercy is one of the primary attributes of God. There's tons of data for this. For example, the place where God dwells in the Holy of Holies is called the 'mercy seat.' There are phrases that are repeated throughout scripture to praise and describe God, and they frequently include the attribute of mercy. For example 'The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.' (2 Chron.)

2. The word mercy used to be used more broadly. The concordance I was using was of the King James Version. Hebrew words that are now translated as 'loving kindness' and 'pity' for example, used to just be 'mercy.' For example, from Micah, an old translation had it 'What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, love mercy (now translated 'kindness') and to walk humbly with your God.'

3. Although 'mercy' appears nowhere in the Gospel of John, it is woven throughout the synoptic Gospels. The birth scene in the first chapter of Luke is filled with the word 'mercy.' Many people who approach Jesus plead for mercy. Jesus teaches about mercy, and for purposes of our conversation there are two particularly interesting instances of this.

-The story of the Good Samaritan, portrayed on my favorite stain glass window at St. Paul's, concludes with Jesus asking 'which one was the neighbor?' The reply is 'the one who showed mercy.' Jesus says 'go and do likewise.'

-Luke's version of Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, often called the Sermon on the Plain, has the simple teaching 'Be merciful, just at your Father is merciful.' (6:36) I encourage you to check out the context.

4. There are some nice verses in the Epistles that connect mercy with the work of the church. Here's one from Titus 'but when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.' (3:4-5)

There's still much to explore and, just because it's one of the key scriptural words doesn't mean it's the word for us. Nonetheless, I get the the sense that this will be a rich vein for us to mine together.

Faithfully,

Christopher