Category: Mercy

For the majority of people the days of being governed by a king are long gone.  In most parts of the world kingships and kingdoms have given way to governments and democracies.  For this reason we are no longer familiar and perhaps even comfortable with what it means to be ruled by a king.  For this reason too Christians may find it difficult to relate to the idea that Jesus is our King.  If we are able to move beyond any initial reaction we may have we can come to see that the kingship of Jesus is a powerful and beautiful reality in the life of the Christian community.

To have Jesus as our King means that we have someone to look up to, someone who can inspire and guide us.  It means too that we have someone who is in control of our lives, someone with power.  To know that there is a powerful person in control of our lives makes us feel safe and secure; it also gives us confidence.

Of course there is a particular aspect to the kingship of Jesus that we need to keep in mind.  The Gospel tells us that Jesus is the person to whom we must give an account of ourselves when we die.  In other words, Jesus and Jesus only is the one who will judge us.  But what will Jesus our King base his judgement on?  Practical love.  Did we care for those in need?  Did we feed the hungry?  Did we visit the sick and the lonely?  Did we clothe the naked?  Did we practise what used to be called the corporal works of mercy?  St John of the Cross, the Carmelite poet and mystic puts it well, “In the evening of life we will be examined in love.”

It is inspiring and encouraging for us to know that Jesus, our King, leads by example.  He does not ask us to do something that he did not do himself.  Jesus fed the hungry, he cured the sick, he befriended lepers and social outcasts, he comforted those who felt lost.  Jesus was a servant king; in fact, Jesus still is a servant king.  Jesus continues to identify himself with the poor, the weak, the unloved.  Indeed, in some mysterious way Jesus is actually present in them.  “As long as you did this to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine you did it to me” (Matt 25:40).  We meet Jesus in our neighbour and we serve Jesus in our neighbour.  This is why Jesus, our King, will judge us on how we treat others, especially those who are most vulnerable.

God is certainly persistent.  God never gives up on anyone, no matter who they are and what they have done.  God keeps pursuing us, reaching out to us, drawing us back, leading us home.  God is, in the words of Francis Thompson, ‘The Hound of Heaven.’

Why does God pursue us so persistently? Because God is merciful.  The heart of the Lord is mercy.  The gospels, especially the Gospel of Luke are full of stories about the mercy of God.  Perhaps the best known is the story of the prodigal.  The word prodigal can mean two things.  It can mean wayward and it can mean lavish.  The love of the father for his wayward son was lavish in the extreme.  It was a love that was expressed in and through tender mercy.

One of the plays I studied in secondary school was ‘The Merchant of Venice’ by William Shakespeare.  For some reason the words I find easiest to remember in that play are those uttered by Portia to Shylock the merchant intent on his pound of flesh:                                    

“The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest.”

The quality of God’s mercy is never strained.  It is never measured, never weighed on a balance.  Because of God’s unlimited mercy we are forgiven when we fail, followed when we stray and found when we are lost.  It is the mercy of God that turns our feelings of guilt into feelings of peace.

Many of us have inherited a judgemental and critical God, a God who is demanding and difficult to please, a God who exacts justice.  Let’s be clear. This is not the God of Jesus.  This is not the Abba Jesus spoke so affectionately and intimately about.  Like Shylock we humans may want others to pay for their wrong doing, but let us not project this on to God.  God is way beyond our desire for vengeance. God is mercy, pure and simple.  For each and every one of us who are constantly failing and falling, God’s unlimited mercy will have the last word, the final say.  In death we will fall into an ocean of mercy.