Day Twenty

Day Twenty // March 11 // Mercy

“A man does not get grace till he comes down to the ground, till he sees he needs grace. When a man stoops to the dust and acknowledges that he needs mercy, then it is that the Lord will give him grace.” – Dwight L. Moody –

The old adage simplifies Christian doctrine. Justice is when we get what we deserve. Mercy is when we don’t get what we deserve. Grace is when we get what we don’t deserve. Our faith is rooted in mercy. Mercy is Jesus feeding the hungry. Mercy is Jesus healing the sick. Mercy is Jesus on the cross dying for our sins. Lent calls us to recognize who we are. To stoop down into the dust and own our flawed humanity. It is only in that place that the gift of mercy can become most dear to us. And then, we must know that the mercy extended to us must be given away to others. Jesus commanded us: “But love your enemies, do good,

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and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6: 35-36). The late Henri Nouwen used to teach a course on compassion. In it, he would tell the story of an experience he had while taking a sabbatical year from the faculty of Yale. He teamed up with a professor from Notre Dame, and they discussed between themselves what would be a scholarly subject worthy of their joint sabbatical. Quite contrary to the usual topics of academia, they determined they would spend a year researching compassion. Among other things, they decided to interview significant leaders. This took them to Washington, D.C., and to an appointment with then Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota. They walked into his office and sat down as he remained behind his desk. Senator Humphrey said, “How can I help you?” Henri said in reply, “We’ve come to ask you, what is compassion?” The senator was taken aback by a most unusual question in a congressional office. He got up from behind his desk, came around, and sat with them. He then picked up a #2 pencil and said, “In our country the whole lead and yellow length of this pencil is competition. Then at the very end of it we have this little eraser, and that in our country is compassion. Ours is not a country based on compassion but rather

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in its length and breadth is based on competition. But when we smear, blot, mess up things and people with our competition, we turn it around and, with this little fixer-up of what we have messed up, we tidy things with compassion.”

That is one of the best definitions of mercy. Mercy is when we foul things up with our competition, only to repair the damage and to tidy up with compassion. Lent causes us to cherish the gift of mercy. But more than that, to extend mercy through our lives to point the way to our Savior!