“Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”
- Luke 6:36
Mercy seems to be the defining word of Jesus’ ministry. Mercy embodied takes on a posture of compassion and service, rather than one of authoritarian order. We saw this in Luke 5, with all whom Jesus offers new wine. Yet in this chapter, Jesus exemplifies mercy to us and instructs us to be equally merciful.
Sourced in the Father:
I like to picture this often as a tower of wine glasses. It’s a beautiful crystalline pyramid. At the very top is a singular overflowing glass, pouring out endless water into the glasses below, until each is also filled and overflowing. From one glass to the next, each gets filled beyond the brim. That is how mercy works.
Mercy begins with the Father of mercies.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
- 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Mercy is sourced from the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort. Let that sink deep. Every mercy, every act of compassion, every comfort, from one God. It all begins with the top wine glass, supernaturally overflowing with water into every wine glass below it. Jesus is the source of mercy as well, and His overflow is still flooding us to this day.
Mercy Restores:
In Luke 6, we have a deeper look at His mercy in action, one that challenges us to properly rest. Luke details two Sabbath controversies, here, Jesus is speaking against the way the Pharisees treat the Sabbath, instead, Jesus challenges the audiences to return to the roots of the Sabbath. At its core, the Sabbath is about resting in the mercy of God, that He is sustaining each one of us in His kindness. It’s not about the rules, it’s about the restoration.
To make this very clear, Jesus calls forward a man with a deformed hand. The man’s hand has likely been useless his whole life, and on this day, Jesus is going to change that. Jesus shows His mercy that morning, in healing the man’s hand in front of everyone who considers that “work.” Jesus chose compassion over destruction. Jesus chose overflow over withholding.
Mercy restores us. So when we learn to give mercy to others from an overflow, we aid in others’ restoration process. We all bear the image of God, but in the fall of man, the image became ill and fallen. Mercy restores it to what it was always intended to be, full and overflowing in love and kindness.
Instructions for Mercy:
Exemplifying mercy was a core part of Jesus’ ministry, and instructing us to give mercy was a core part of Jesus’ teachings. These are the teachings we do not quote enough:
“But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from the one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.”
- Luke 6:27-29
In other words, show mercy, do mercy, be mercy, pray for mercy, offer mercy, and do not withhold mercy! Does this mean you let yourself be abused and walked all over? No! Yet this also means not seeking your vengeance. Vengeance is for the God of Justice, who is the only one who can truly, fully, and fairly judge. Which makes His mercy all the sweeter, for while we are so deserving of judgment, He has offered us mercy.
Are we so full of pride then, that for even minor offenses we hold grudges? Are we to allow a difference of opinion to become a chasm a mile wide? Again though, we must not allow or permit abuse of any kind, but why empower the abuser by refusing to have mercy on them? Mercy is unexpected these days, retaliation only allows the abuser to find justification for their wrongness. Mercy, who can raise a defense against the offering of mercy?
We are taught to be mercy-makers. Where there is division, we are instructed to make every effort to be united. Where there is hate, we are instructed to create goodness. Where we are mocked for our faith, we are instructed to persevere and share the gospel. Where we are abused, we are instructed to confront them through Christ by praying. Where the world likes to throw punches, we are instructed to take the hits, for there is nothing this world can do to those in Christ, for Christ has overcome this world.
We are to be merciful, just as God is merciful.
Can we become one of the cups that allow ourselves to be so filled by God’s mercy that we overflow with mercy into others? What if we lived from an overflow?
Final Blessing:
I believe that in order to live from an overflow we must rest in mercy daily. To find ourselves drinking from the source of mercy, through prayer and devotion. To find ourselves being restored in mercy, allowing kindness to touch the parts of us that we do not want it to. Sometimes that looks like therapy, other times it’s a deeper prayer time; in either, it's drinking richly from the source of mercy. From this, we turn to others who are in just as much need of mercy, and we pour out what has been poured into us, we become mercy-makers.
Now may the Lord of Life and Redemption be with you in every step, every breath, and every heartbeat of your journey!
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