Praise the Lord! For he has heard my cry for mercy.
Psalm 28v6
Mercy, what a wonderful word!
When we know we’ve done wrong we can be filled with the dread of being found out and the consequences that will come. Those who commit crimes try to cover their tracks so as not to be found out. Many go on the run, changing addresses and even countries. They may have a certain sense of satisfaction in having committed their crime, especially if it was well planned and they got away with it, but there must be a deep-seated fear of being traced, arrested and brought to justice.
Imagine their utter amazement if they were arrested and stood in the dock, and the judge, knowing full well their history and all the details of their crimes, extended mercy to them and paid their debt in full himself. But not just that.
Imagine that the judge also adopted the person as their child, brought them into his home and made it his life’s purpose to teach the person how to live as a good and upright citizen. But not just that
Imagine that if someone came knocking on the judge’s door wanting compensation for other newly discovered crimes that person had previously committed the judges pays it all. Wouldn’t that criminal be filled with unspeakable joy?
That’s what you get when you cry out for God’s mercy!
Jesus paid a debt we could never pay. The debt of sinfulness. We so misunderstand sin. We think of sin as being some terrible thing like murder, bank robbery, rape or abuse of any kind. We miss the point that we are born sinners before we’ve had the chance to do good or evil. We are born separated from God. The original sin of Adam was to choose for himself what was good, rather than trusting that God alone knows what’s right and wrong. So, we are born wanting to do our own thing, trying to ignore our God given conscience, rationalizing and defending ourselves and our actions.
But God is so merciful and so loving. When Adam and Eve sinned, He could have wiped them out. He could have destroyed the world and created a new one. But He didn’t. He extended mercy. Although Adam and Eve had to leave Eden and be separated from the Presence of God, He gave them the promise of a coming redeemer who would destroy the deceiver. God continually repeated His promise through the history of the Old Testament.
Jesus, the promised Messiah came. He paid the price for every sin committed from Adam until the end of the age. He offers mercy to whoever will receive it.
When God adopts us as His child, the devil cannot come knocking at His door looking to slander us and drag us to hell with him. Jesus has paid our debt. We are safe in Him.
I imagine that the criminal in the illustration above would love and honour and praise and defend the judge who had mercy on him, who paid his debt and brought him into his own home to protect him.
We should do no less for the One who did so much more for us.
