Love Mercy

When we talk, then, about how central mercy is to God's indwelling presence in the world and how it depends upon truth at its very foundations, we see how important it is that we, as God's people, come to have the same eyes for mercy as God does. 

In fact, it's one of the things Micah tells us the Lord requires of us - to love mercy.

That means that when the world is screaming, He should be fired!, it is Christians who ought to be building a hedge of protection around the man who made an error and gently guiding him into a more disciplined way of doing things. It is Christians who ought to be celebrating his transfer, rather than his termination. 

It means that when the world is content to blackball, to outcast, to turn out a man on the mere accusation of wrongdoing, no matter how grievous, it is Christians who ought to be calming the storms around him and pulling him into the boat for awhile. And if it is shown that the accused is truly guilty, it is Christians who ought to be first to seize upon his heart, hear his apology, embrace his atonement, and believe in his change. 

Remember that Jesus did not condemn the accused, even when it was clear that she was guilty. Rather, He knelt in the dirt and dusted off the sins of the condemners until not one of them any longer believed he had moral ground to stand on. 

And this, by the way, was a sexual sin, just like so many that are making our headlines today. This woman was brought right from the act of adultery, by those who believed they were in the right to condemn her for it. Yet not one of them was able. Was it because they all had sexual sin within them and were therefore no longer able to judge her on the basis of the deplorableness of her sin? Probably not. The message of Jesus here is that no matter how deplorable, sin is sin. Sexual sin is not somehow "worse" than anything you've ever done, so, to put it crudely, get over yourself. 

Get entirely over your holier-than-thou, arrogant-"righteousness" self. 

And it means that when the world cries out for vengeance, it is Christians who ought to embrace justice...and then mercy on top of that. (By the way, justice is another value Micah calls us to in the very same verse.) It means that when the world screams, Cut her up!, it is Christians who kneel in grief with her. It is Christians who hold her tender heart, which is not calloused but is so deeply longing, in their folded hands and pray with her - for the life that she longed for, the life that she wounded, the life that she took, and the life that she seemed to throw away, all in this one unspeakable act that we, as Christians, ought to be on the front lines of speaking.

It's about developing God's eyes for this world. Without God's eyes, we could never have His heart. And without His heart, what are we doing here? Tell me. If we don't love as God loves, if we don't indwell this world in mercy the way that God indwells this world in mercy, what exactly are we doing? 

And contrary to what this world would have us believe in all of its black-and-white, cut-and-dried, yes-and-no, guilty-and-not guilty, truth-or-mercy world, we are not blind to what is truly going on in this world. We are not ignoring the guilt of the guilty. We are not turning our backs on the innocent. Rather, we are facing head-on what fallenness is, but the way that God would have us do it. 

With mercy.

Which depends wholly upon truth. 

It's not black-and-white. That would be too easy. It is shades upon shades upon shades of love. And that's what makes it beautiful. 

Throne of Mercy

Our world has set up a tremendous barrier between mercy and truth, unashamedly declaring that the two simply cannot co-exist. But the biblical truth is not just that the two can co-exist, but that they must. 

Mercy depends upon truth. (And therefore, truth paves the way for mercy.)

It is absolutely vital that we, as Christians, get this right and refuse to settle for anything less than the intimate interweaving of mercy and truth. Not just because that is the way that God would have it, but because that is the way that God is.

When God first came to dwell among His people in the Tabernacle, He dwelt in the Holy of Holies, the Most Holy Place. Inside the Most Holy Place laid the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the words of the Lord's commandments. And just above the Ark of the Covenant, just over the word of truth, sat the Throne of Mercy (alternately called the Mercy Seat), and it is here that the glory of the Lord descended and dwelt.

On mercy. Nestled just over the truth. 

That's not an accident. It's not a coincidence. It's not an afterthought, as though God designed this entire Tabernacle and then thought, hmm, now where would be a good place for Me to dwell? 

No, He knew He would dwell in mercy on truth. He knew this was the way that He would come into His world - not denying the truth of where the world had fallen, but neither forsaking it to its own temptations. In order for God to come into this world and continue to be, well, God, He had to make a way for the world to be painfully as it was - fallen, sinful, rebellious, and heartbreaking (truth) - without losing that incredible love that makes Him God - forgiving, treasuring, grieving, and still loving (mercy). 

And if this is what's missing from our world, which says that the two cannot co-exist, then even more tragic is that this is coming to be what is missing from our God, as we try to make Him more palatable to the world. Because when they don't understand that mercy and truth depend upon one another, they cannot fathom a God who could be both.

So we have watered Him down. Ironically, in a world so hell-bent on an unforgiving truth - he should be fired; write him off; cut her up - we have watered down God in favor of mercy, preaching a Savior who quite honestly doesn't care that much about what you do but loves you no matter what. He doesn't require you to confess anything, and He doesn't require you to change anything. He's here for you, and that doesn't put any burden on your life. 

It's pure blessing, through and through, all the way around. This God of tremendous mercy who has no care at all for things like truth. Truth, you know, gets in the way of all that love and all those good feelings that God has toward you. Truth, you know, gets in the way of His just forgiving you and blessing you and spoiling you and making your life beautiful and amazing because you are beautiful and amazing. Forget all that sin stuff. Forget all the truth. God is pure mercy without all that. 

Understandably, the world then looks at us and says, how can this be? How can your God claim to be loving and be all mercy? How can your God just love everyone when a lot of persons (not me, of course) are pure jerks, total wastes of skin, don't deserve the air their breathing? How can you tell us that your God loves me when the way that you paint Him in mercy ignores the truth of who these pathetic wastes of human beings are? You're telling me God loves me, but you're telling me, too, that He loves the moron, the molester, and the murderer. 

No wonder the world doesn't buy it. It doesn't make sense. Mercy without truth doesn't make any sense, and even a world that doesn't particularly care for the interwovenness of both together recognizes this reality. Mercy without truth is empty. 

Truth without mercy is bitter. 

The only way it works is the way that God proclaimed it from the very beginning. And if we love this God, and if He loves this world, then the only way to have it is the way that He brought it. To the indwelling of the Most Holy Place in mercy upon truth. 

Have Mercy

A few weeks ago, an employee at Hawaii's emergency alert system made an error that sent the whole island state into a panic, but the whole nation went into an uproar when, at least in the immediate fallout, that employee was allowed to continue working for Hawaii's emergency alert system (albeit in a different role). He should be fired.

A whole series of famous, and not-so-famous, men have been accused (not convicted or even charged, but merely accused) of sexual harassment or assault, and they have lost their jobs, lost their standing, been blackballed, been written out, been demonized and rejected and spit on. As it should be.

A woman cut the unborn baby out of her neighbor's womb in her bathroom and presented the child to her own mate as their own, and without missing a beat, we call her the scum of the earth, a horrible woman, and we condemn her. Someone should cut her into pieces.

The stories go on and on; you can probably fill in some more on your own. Every time a new headline breaks, we jump right for the throat and demand vengeance. Not justice. We call it justice, but it's really not. It's vengeance. We want someone to pay for the wrongs in this world, however small or large, real or imagined, justified or unjustified. 

Because, you see, we have lost room for mercy. 

It's because we have come to believe that mercy and truth are fundamentally opposed to one another. They cannot exist in the same space. If it's true that the employee committed an error, then he must lose his job. If he doesn't lose his job, we are somehow saying he didn't screw up. If it's true that a man can be accused of a sexual trespass, then he should be demonized. If we don't demonize him, we are somehow saying that he couldn't have committed a sexual trespass. If it's true that this woman cut a baby out of her neighbor's womb, then she ought to be cut up. If we don't cut her up, we are somehow saying she didn't cut her neighbor. 

If there is truth, there cannot be mercy, for the mercy would obscure, at least, if not negate somehow the truth. 

But the biblical idea of mercy could not be further from the world's. Real mercy could not be closer to the truth. In fact, it depends upon it. 

Biblical mercy - real mercy - is the idea that you don't get what you deserve. It's the idea that you should be fired, demonized, or cut up, but you aren't. The only way that you understand that you aren't, that you haven't gotten what you deserve, is to be honest about what you deserve and confess what you are. 

In other words, mercy does not exist where truth is absent. It can't. It is entirely contingent upon authenticity, confession, and a real admission of what you deserve. Mercy requires you to say, I screwed up. I trespassed. I wounded. I cut. I hurt. I fell short. I did it. I'm guilty. And if I wasn't guilty, I'd have no need of mercy. 

So contrary to what the world says, mercy doesn't cheapen truth; it strengthens it. And truth strengthens mercy. It is not in a world of mercy that truth has no meaning, but in a world of truth that mercy gets its deepest meaning. 

Which means that it is upon us, as Christians, to bring mercy back. It is upon us to lead the calls amid truth for mercy. It is upon us to show that these two ideas are not mutually exclusive, but intimately inclusive - they depend upon one another. 

It is upon us to say, you did. But neither do I condemn you.

Because mercy is a Jesus thing. It's one of the best of all Jesus things. It's time to start bringing it back. 

And it starts - not ends - with truth. 

In His Eyes

If this all sounds paradoxical, confusing, and downright impossible, you're not alone. How do we find room in our Christianity for being beloved without making it about ourselves and losing sight of God? We want our faith to be about Him; He is, after all, God. But He says that He is God for our sake, and He wants us to live knowing how deeply He loves us. 

And all of this is enough to make your head spin. 

But it doesn't have to. Really, what it takes is separating these ideas from what a fallen world has to say about them and going back to the very beginning, to the way that God intended things to be. 

See, the world says that if you fill up on yourself, you become egotistical. You become self-centered. You start to live in a world where everything is about you. And that's absolutely right. Unless whatever you drink of yourself is poured out as a pure offering. Now, now you're getting somewhere.

Which is why, when we try to go after a faith that can hold both of these ideas, it comes not by trying to have them both, but by passionately holding onto the one - we hold onto God with everything we've got and only through His lens do we see how beloved we are. 

Go back again to the image of the bride. As she starts her walk down the aisle, she sees her groom's eyes light up. She sees him delight in her. She sees how deeply he loves her. She does not think, "Gosh, I must look beautiful for him to look at me like that." She does not think, "Yup. He really got a good one in me." She does not actually think about herself at all; she thinks about the love that's taking place between their eyes.

She looks at him looking at her, and she sees love. Pure and simple. Plain as day. And she thinks about how wonderful this love is and how blessed she is to have his affections. 

On what is one of the beautiful days of all of her life, the day that so many young girls look forward to, she only knows her belovedness by seeing it in his eyes. 

It's the same way we know ours. 

The world says if we want to know our belovedness, we have to love ourselves. We have to fill up on our own love so that there's not a question in our mind. But faith says if we want to know our belovedness, we have to fill up on Him because only He can reveal that to us. It is by filling ourselves with God that we come into our fullness, not by filling ourselves on ourselves. 

And this belovedness seeps back into what we know of God, as well. The world says if we want to know about God, we must study Him. We must pray, read the Bible, go to church, and fill our heads - and maybe our hearts - with the knowledge of who He is. But that's not quite it either. Faith says something totally different. Faith says that when we let Him pour into us our fullness, only then can we comprehend the fullness of God. 

In other words, we cannot know that God is love until we are loved by Him.

Once more to the bride (last time, I promise). She sees her belovedness in her groom's eyes as he beholds her, and this does not make her think of herself, but of their love. In that moment, she is overwhelmed with her love for him. She doesn't think, "Oh, how lucky he is" or "Oh, how lucky I am," but rather, "how much he loves me" and "how much I love him." 

The same is true of us. When we see the way that God's eyes light up for us, almost by instinct our eyes light up for Him. Whatever affections we have for Him are deepened by seeing His love for us dancing in His eyes. Whatever love we thought we had, or thought we should have, is sealed by this moment. And anyone watching this wonderful wedding whispers to the one standing next to them, "Look how much they love each other." 

How could we not? For God is love, and we are His beloved. He is our bridegroom. 

And we are His bride.

Beloved Disciples

Recognizing that at the heart of Christianity is God's heart for us may seem like some too big a temptation to self-centeredness to bear, but it doesn't have to be. We can permit ourselves to know God's deep, passionate, abiding love for us without getting all uppity about ourselves. 

Think about that moment when the doors at the back of the church open and the bride steps through. You know it's happened because you can see it all over the groom's face; the bride sees it, too. It takes her breath away to see his breath taken away, to see her beauty reflected in his delight. It does not diminish the wedding to see this silent exchange of deep love and delightedness; it enhances the whole thing. We witness this and say, "Look how much they love each other," and we are filled with great joy. 

It's why we weep. 

But we would not say that the bride has become self-centered. Not at all. We would not say that she has lost sense of the wedding because her breath is short. We would not say that she has lost all sense of what she and her groom are going to create together because her beauty has been recognized. That is absurd. And is the same with us, with the bride of Christ.

John wrote an entire Gospel with this idea at the very core of his witness. Whenever he refers to himself in his account of Christ's life, he does not call himself by name. He does not even reference himself with a personal pronoun. Rather, he says, "the disciple that Jesus loved." We have figured out that this was John himself. And you know? 

It's still not about him.

It's a bold statement, to be sure. Most of us read that with our modern sensibilities and we say, "Well...John sure thought pretty highly of himself!" Or we just think it's weird and move on. Or whatever. But it's not weird, and it's not at all that John thought highly of himself. Rather, it is that John knew deeply, without a doubt, how highly Jesus thought of him.

What John wants us to realize, what he wants us to know, is that he's not telling this story as a reporter. He's not telling this story as a mere witness. He's not even telling this story as just any disciple, which we might today refer to more as a "fan boy." I mean, how much can you trust someone who is fired up about the thing he is talking about? If someone came up to you wearing a T-shirt, a ball cap, a bracelet, and socks that all spouted the same band's name, you would expect that that person's opinion about that band would be slightly biased (at least). If you get the story of Jesus from a disciple, you might think it's a bit biased, too. After all, look at everything John gave up for this story. It has to be a good story, right? 

But John says he's not just a disciple. He's no fan boy. His investment in this story is much more than just this story; it's the very depth of his relationship with the Man he's talking about, one who loved him. 

It turns everything on its head. It takes everything to an entirely new level. It's actually the one and only piece of evidence we have in the Gospels about how thoroughly relational Jesus is. Sure, He talked to everyone and broke bread and got into boats and invited others to go with Him, but all of that could, on the surface, be just utilitarian. He could be doing it just because that's the way to do things. 

Give us, though, a disciple who says he was loved, and that changes everything. When John says he is the disciple who Jesus loved, that tells us that Jesus loved him. He's relational. He's invested. He's engaged. 

And really, it doesn't make us for an instant think that the Jesus story is about John. It doesn't make us think that the Gospels are secretly supposed to tell John's story. It doesn't make us think that John was so self-centered that he couldn't get out of the way. No, it makes us love Jesus more because we see Him through the beloved disciple's eyes. 

It's a right understanding of self that's the heart of this whole thing. It's the contextual understanding of self. It's the relational understanding of self and Christ that makes this whole thing work. And we might say, in our modern vernacular, that it is humility that is at center of John's bold witness. 

I think it's something even more simple than that - I think it's purity. It's the pureness of a disciple who looks into Jesus's eyes and sees how deeply He loves him. It's the pureness of a bride who, in that flick of a second, catches her groom's eyes dancing with delight and is delighted herself. It's the pure, natural radiance of this moment, this breath-taking moment of realizing how beloved you are...because He loves you. 

He loves you. His story, and He loves you in it. His altar, and He's waiting for you at it. His wedding, and you are His bride.  

And if we don't have a Christianity that makes room for that, how can we keep on saying our God is love?