A Mercy That Changes Everything

April 23, 2017 –– 2nd Sunday of Easter: Sunday of Divine Mercy

Acts 2:42–47 / from Psalm 118 / 1 Peter 1:3–9 / John 20:19–31

A Mercy That Changes Everything

Last week I read of one man asking a second how his marriage was going. The second man replied, My wife treats me like a god.” “Wow,” said the first man, “you mean she adores and obeys you?” “No,” said the second. “She generally ignores me unless she wants something.”

Jokes sometime give a hard truth that is merely couched in laughter, but perhaps the worst part of this one is the analogy to many people’s relationship with God. Marriage is one way to understand our relationship to the Lord. But how is it going? We “believe” in the sense that we come to church. We say the Creed. Beyond that, do we truly adore and obey? Or could it be that we are like the second man’s wife––“she generally ignores me unless she wants something”?

As we go through this Easter Season and seek to enter more fully into the Resurrection I have been impressed with one question: How is my life different from a non-believer because Jesus Christ is risen from the dead?

Scripture is honest. At first even the inner circle of disciples were doubtful and afraid. They locked themselves away, but locks cannot keep out the Love of God. Jesus came to them and his first words gave his assurance of Peace. Then he showed them his wounds––it really was Jesus.

All of this had a purpose. God had just released a heavenly cascade of Mercy on the world. The death and resurrection of Jesus was the source; the disciples and the Christian community that was about to be formed was to be the channel: Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained. The death and resurrection of Jesus is about God’s mercy!

Jesus was giving the Church, through the Apostles, authority over sin. Peter grew in his understanding so that he could later write: God… in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable…. kept in heaven for you.

There are two things there that every person on earth desires and seeks in some way: a living hope and an inheritance that is imperishable. What gives us the motivation to start a new day? It is hope that something good is going to come. What are we hoping for? Something good that is worth having and something that will last.

Yet the very things that we spend the most time and energy trying to acquire are the very things the early Christians actually gave away! They were donating their property and possessions so that no one had too much and everyone had enough.

How are we to understand this? I guess volumes could be written (and have been) on the implications of the just the readings for today. I would like to suggest one succinct idea that encompasses everything else: Those early Christians were so affected by the mercy of God that their greatest desire was to extend the mercy they themselves had received.

Let’s think honestly about our lives for a quick reflective minute (if that is possible). Before the many advantages of modernity, common people mostly lived “on the edge.” Immediate threats (especially by our standards) were common: simple illnesses could quickly turn serious; food supply was dependent on local availability and that was always affected by the variables of weather and harvest; life expectancy was often much shorter; extensive travel was unusual for most, and land travel was either two-footed or four-footed; staying alive was generally the single focus. Those who were relatively comfortable and secure had much to lose in a world where it was hard to maintain any luxuries. Those who had little had to work all the harder merely to maintain.

Here we are today, certainly with threats and worries, yet our lives are filled with what we might call “discretionary” pleasures. We have daily choices that would have dazzled people a few generations ago; just think of our menu options. On the larger front, a child does not have to do what his father did, and women have open doors to education and vocational opportunities. Our culture present us with so many options, and we have the resources to pursue them.

The downside to this is that we can live such distracted lives that we take the good things for granted and hardly know how process the truly hard things that hit us. This means that we can live our lives inoculated to mercy, and when we are not aware of the mercy that surrounds us it is very hard to extend it to others.

We gather and worship in a beautiful and comfortable setting. It is mercy. We go out from our gathering and, far from going hungry, have good meals with likely just the foods we particularly want to eat. Many of us have a “bucket list”; we often have a list of purchases we hope to make along with ideas of how to channel a bit of discretionary income to cover them. Having such options is mercy; one way to assess wealth is by the number of choices we have.

But there is a danger: The mercies which can enrich our lives can also have the counterproductive effect of an attitude of entitlement and a tendency to grasp instead of give. Those early Christians saw in Jesus a person who confronted a grab-and-grasp-world, surrendered to its anger of being exposed, and then made a reappearance that shouted “this world is not all there is.” When we can see that, it is the biggest mercy of all.

What is your heart’s desire? What is your biggest fear or your greatest hurt? What is your dearest treasure? Are those things tempered by the mercy of God or could it be that they are crowding an awareness of God’s mercy and the life of Jesus out of your life? Like the actually not-so-funny joke, do we often ignore God except when we want something?

Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, is the basis of all we are as Christians. The resurrection of Jesus Christ has unleashed the mercy of God.

I’d like to suggest a prayer for this coming week (or maybe for the rest of your life): Lord Jesus, I open my life today to your mercy. Help me to adore and obey you. Give me the grace never to ignore you. Let me be a channel of your mercy to the people I meet today. Amen.

Then ask yourself regularly: How is my life different from an unbelieving world because I believe that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead?