Have you ever received unexpected kindness in your life? I believe that many of you have experienced it in one way or another. I am sure that many of you have also provided it for others. In the Bible, we can find numerous stories of mercy. In the Old Testament, when God met His servant Moses on top of the mountain, He proclaimed the following names: “the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin” (Exodus 34:6-7). I would summarize these titles of the Lord with the following phrase: “God is merciful.”
In the New Testament, when Jesus delivered the Beatitudes, or in other words, beautiful attitudes toward God and His people, Christ emphasized the importance of being merciful and its blessings: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:5). Those who possess kindness, forgiveness, and compassion and demonstrate these attributes to others will receive the same. Jesus Christ was a perfect example of showing divine mercy.
I am often reminded of the merciful petition that Jesus made for those, including myself, who keep forgetting God and disobeying Him: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Jesus prayed this while He was crucified on the cross, in front of the unmerciful soldiers who divided up His clothes by casting lots and mocking Him. Do you know what happened to them later? When one of the soldiers, a centurion, witnessed Jesus and heard His kind words and saw His deeds even amidst unforgiving situations, he praised God by saying: “Surely this was a righteous man” (Luke 23:47). By the mercy of Jesus, the centurion was changed into a merciful person!
In our sacred text for today, the Apostle Paul, another recipient of God’s mercy, also highlights the importance of the grace of Christ and its implications. “But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions” (Ephesians 2:5). What a wonderful statement! Because of Christ’s mercy, like the Roman soldier, those of us who have put our trust in God and repent of our sins before Christ with the help of the Holy Spirit, have been changed into gracious people of the Triune Lord. Please understand this: I am not saying that we are always loving and kind to everybody around us, even though we hope and pray. I don’t know about you, but almost every day, I cry out to God by saying, “Lord, have mercy upon me.” I cannot calculate how many times the merciful Lord my God has shown me His love and kindness in various ways. Despite many failures in resembling the Holy God’s full image, the gracious Lord has helped us to keep holding on to our spiritually pure longings to be perfect before Him. Because of God’s abundant grace, love, and kindness – another word for God’s mercy – upon us, with the help of the Holy Spirit, once again, we have been able to grow more and more like Jesus Christ since we dedicated our lives to the Triune Lord.
This morning, the Apostle Paul reminds those of us who have encountered the merciful Jesus, like him, of our real identity as God’s handiwork” (Ephesians 2:10). He also encourages us to “do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do,” in other words, to share the divine mercy of Christ in words and deeds with those who are underserved as we were in the past. As Christians, we are all called to model our attitudes and actions after Jesus Christ. We are all called to be agents of sacred mercy in an unmerciful world.
In the famous story called “The Goats and Sheep” from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus shared practical ways of sharing His mercy with others (Matt. 25:31-46). Jesus illustrated
His audience who would be invited to the Kingdom of God by saying: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you… For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” After listing those merciful actions to those in need, Jesus declared: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40).
Where are we supposed to show our mercy? Instead of answering this question directly, I want to share with you a story of Christ’s visit to a cobbler…
Whether we realize it or not, our Lord Jesus Christ was once a stranger. King Herod, who was a ruler of Israel when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, gave orders to “kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under.” During that time, an angel of the Lord appeared Joseph and asked him to escape to Egypt with his wife Mary and their newborn baby, Jesus. After King Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared again to them to go back to the land of Israel with their child (Matthew 2:13-23). That is why, as a newcomer, Jesus would clearly understand the challenges of all alien residents, refugees, or immigrants. The Apostle Paul frequently mentioned the equality and dignity of all people whether they were Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, male or female, and any other groups with differences (Galatians 3:28). According to him, we as Christ’s followers are all God’s Masterpieces regardless of our various personal backgrounds, and we are all one in the Lord in this diverse world. From this divine perspective, the Bible underscores the importance of treating everyone, whether settlers or strangers, with love and respect. Once again, remember, whether we recognize it or not, all of us used to be strangers in one way or another and/or each of us may be newcomers to some degree someday.
Christ is all around us in the faces of the least who are vulnerable. As individuals, we cannot do everything for the least Jesus is talking about, but collectively as Children of God, we can make a difference in each of their lives. When we remember God’s enormous love and kindness shown to us through Christ, we can become agents of divine mercy. When we share God’s grace with others, whether big or small, and the greatest gift – Jesus Christ – in many ways, He sees it and one day He will reward us for all of it. The Lord our God will help us receive the full of His mercy in Heaven when we are called to be with Him.
*In this sermon, I have used some thoughts from various messages based on Matthew 5:7 and Ephesians 2:1-10.