Grace vs. Mercy

I drove to Camp Walter Johnson today to pick up some music for a Christmas gig coming up on Thursday morning. It's a little bit more than an hour-long drive X both directions. Altogether I had 3 hours to think (and to listen to NPR between thoughts - I have indeed become a closet National Public Radio junkie).

On the Dianne Rehm show (which I usually don't listen too as Mrs. Rehm sounds agéd and dessicated - old and dried out for those of you who wish to not find a dictionary right now), there was a member of a conservative Christian group (I forget which one) and a representative of the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). So, basically, there was a forum between representatives from opposing poles of the political spectrum.

The topics ran the gamut from homosexual marriage, to abortion, to prayer in public schools, etc. The point of all this is that I got to do a lot of thinking about a bunch of different things.

I got thinking about the concepts of grace and mercy. The best explanation I ever heard of the two was as follows: "Mercy is how one DOES NOT get what we DESERVE (i.e. we DON'T get sentenced to hell, even though we deserve it; whereas Grace is how we GET what we DO NOT deserve (i.e. we get blessings upon blessings even though we have meritted them)."

We seem to spend all of our time stuck in grace mode. We're very aware of grace. We REALIZE the significance of grace. We're very thankful for Grace. We're all about grace. We seem to miss the boat on mercy.

I think this is reflected, too, in everyday life. There is A LOT of grace in this world . . . there's not a heck of a lot of mercy, that I can see. Perhaps I'm not looking in the right places.

I think it's probably best explained by thinking about what each involves. For HUMANS to replicate grace is self-serving in a way, and almost fun. Giving people stuff is good for both people. If you buy someone a gift, for example, it's win-win. They get a gift, you get the thanks for getting the gift, and maybe a little popularity. Anybody who buys me a gift is OK in my books. AND, you feel good about yourself too . . . that may be a little trivial . . . but the general idea is the same. The Salvation Army is GRACEFUL at Christmas. No one really DESERVES all of the gifts and assistance that the Army gives (need does not necessarily equal merit), but it gives it nonetheless . . . cause that's what Jesus would do.

Now, mercy on the other hand is more like self-degradation. For us to replicate it, something bad needs to be taken away from someone that deserves something bad to happen to them. Sometime supervisors will step in to "take the blame" for something that an employee did. But, that's the exception rather than the rule. "Let 'em get what's comin' to 'em." Someone would need to step in to take the death penalty suggested for Scott Peterson. That's somewhat more difficult to do. Mercy always involves an abasement of the merciful. It's a double whammy: degradation plus whatever penalty your taking.

Hopefully, I can start looking for ways to be merciful. Jesus took the nails in his hands, and his feet, took a spear to the side, that should have been headed for me. It's easy to be graceful, relatively speaking. Jesus didn't want the "cup taken away" from He was being Graceful. He wanted it taken away because he knew what the results would be if he were merciful.

Hopefully all this makes sense. It's been a "me thinking with my fingers session".

One last quick thought: it seems to me that we'd be a whole lot more in love (endebted to, appreciative, etc) of someone who was merciful (i.e. took away something bad) than someone who was graceful. If we were to fully appreciate God's mercy (i.e. that He gave up his life, when He should have TAKEN ours) how much more would we want to worship Him. How much less would we complain that our roast is at home burning in the oven on a Sunday morning? When given the choice between eating lunch on time or kneeling snotty-faced at the foot of the cross pouring out our love for the SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD, would we still choose lunch?

Grace AND Mercy.