Acts 7:55-60; 1 Peter 2:2-10
What does
it feel like to encounter the Risen Christ? In the New Testament, Jesus meets
people in various ways after his resurrection: standing outside the tomb,
appearing suddenly in a locked room, walking on the road to Emmaus, making
breakfast for his friends on the beach. But there is a common thread that runs
through all the resurrection stories, an experience present in all of them. And
we can see it in our lesson from Acts today. Right as they prepare to kill
Stephen, he sees the heavens opened and Jesus standing at the right hand of
God. It’s an incredible vision, perhaps more awe-inspiring than the other
resurrection appearances, but it conveys the same core experience. Stephen
expresses it as they hurl stones at him to bludgeon him to death: Lord, do
not hold this sin against them. What does it feel like to encounter the
Risen Christ? It feels like mercy.
Mercy is
always a sign that Jesus is present. When people encounter Jesus, they
experience mercy. Tax collectors, prostitutes, the Samaritan woman, Zacchaeus,
the woman caught in adultery, the sinner who anoints Jesus’ feet — all of them
are embraced by the mercy of Christ. And it’s not like Jesus overlooks or
ignores their sin: he sees it, and loves them anyway. Some of you have heard of
Bryan Stevenson, an attorney who has worked tirelessly on behalf of people who
have been unjustly condemned to death. He wrote an outstanding book entitled Just
Mercy, which people in our racial reconciliation ministry have read, and I
strongly recommend it. At one point in that book he says, “Each of us is more
than the worst thing we’ve ever done.” Each one of us is more than the worst
thing we have ever done. That’s a Christ statement; that’s the way Jesus views
us. He sees the sin in all of us, but he also sees the beauty and the desire
for goodness in all of us. Yes, he forgives, but his greatest act of mercy is
seeing us whole, realizing we are more than our sins, more than the worst thing
we’ve ever done. We are God’s beloved, cherished even as we are.
Jesus
expresses that mercy most completely on the cross, an outpouring of pure
unconditional love. And it is a distinctive feature of his resurrection
appearances as well. Stephen is so engulfed in mercy that he pours it out on
his murderers, forgiving them even as Jesus forgave those who crucified him.
But it doesn't stop there. Mercy is the hallmark of the early Church. First
Peter today speaks of that ragtag group of those first believers in exalted
terms: You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own
people. That’s an amazing description, but it gets even more amazing.
Because what makes them so special? Power? Virtue? Piety? No. The author says
it clearly: Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once
you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
When
people look at the Christian Church today, do they see mercy? When people look
at Church of Our Saviour, do they experience mercy? When people look at you and
me, do they feel mercy? God knows the world needs more mercy. In that spirit,
today I want to share with you a prayer and a practice. The prayer is ancient,
one of the oldest and most widely prayed of all Christians prayers. It is the
Jesus prayer. The full version is “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God,
have mercy on me, a sinner.” But the shorter version that I pray is simply,
“Lord Jesus, have mercy.” That has been at the core of my contemplative prayer
practice for many years, but whether we pray it a lot or just occasionally, its
power resides in its simple and pure expression of the Gospel. Because Jesus
does have mercy. When I pray that prayer over and over, I am made more aware
that we swim in an ocean of mercy. As hard as life can be and as badly as we
all can fail, God’s loving mercy embraces us at all times and will do so
forever. And it’s not just that I feel that mercy filling me — I feel it
flowing through me. Mercy, like love, cannot be hoarded: it must be shared. We
experience mercy the more we show mercy.
And that
leads me to the practice. This week, every week, show mercy to someone else. Be
kind to someone who doesn’t deserve it. Forgive someone who needs forgiveness.
Respond to anger with gentleness; respond to malice with love. Just do it. The
prayer and the practice are powerful. To pray often, “Lord Jesus, have mercy”
and then to show mercy freely and generously will slowly but surely change us
and change the world. Certainly the more we do it, the more we will see for
ourselves the Risen Christ, and, just as importantly, the more other people
will see the Risen Christ in us.
Lord
Jesus, have mercy.
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