Rev Gav
How do I receive God’s mercy?
I remember once, when I was about eight years old, playing with a large, rubber bouncy ball. I was tossing it against a wall and having great fun trying to catch the speedy rebounds until it bounced full-speed, smashing through a window pane, and straight into our living room. I stood there, mouth agape, and promptly burst into tears. I was going to be in big trouble and there was only one thing to do. Hide. I bolted for my tree house in the wooded area at the bottom of the garden, and there I stayed, for hours, until it began to get dark. I was teary, tired, and very hungry when I sheepishly let myself back into the house to confess my crime. My mum frowned, tilted her head, and laughed! She gave me a big hug and said, “It was an accident and only a window pane. It can easily be fixed. Come and have your dindins.”
I sometimes think of the book of Hebrews in the Bible to be a slightly religious or stern book, but I love this tender passage, “Jesus is not unable to sympathise with our weaknesses. Why? Because, despite never sinning, he was just like us and tempted in every way. Therefore, when we find ourselves in need of grace, let us approach boldly the very throne of grace and receive God’s mercy.” (Hebrews 4:15-16).
When we find ourselves messing up and making mistakes, as the writer of Hebrews states, we find ourselves in need, but in need of what? Forgiveness, comfort, and peace, yes, but most of all we are in need of reconciliation. The reason I hid in my treehouse was fear, and what we are most afraid of, when we mess up, is fear of punishment or rejection. What we really want is to know is that the relationship is still good, that everything will be okay, and we can carry on as it did before.
You see, being tempted to sin is all about breaking relationships with God, others, and the world around us, and this makes sense because if the God of love is all about restoration and reconciliation, the opposite is separation, isolation, and desolation. So what is sin?
Despite what you may have been taught in Sunday school, sin is not a list of rules that we break, for as Christians, we are no longer under the law but under grace. We are not under the Mosaic law, the Deuteronomic law, the Levitical law, or under laws imposed by the early church. For example, when the first gentiles became Christians, the apostles did not convert them to Judaism and force them to be circumcised, abstain from certain foods, or make them keep the sabbath. Similarly, we do not adhere to other contextual rules found in the New Testament. As Paul writes in his letter to the Church in Corinth, “Everything is permissible for me but not everything is beneficial.” (1 Corinthians 6:12).
Now, does our newfound freedom in Christ mean we can do what we like with no consequences? Of course not! Clearly, we still do things that break relationships with others, God, and God’s creation — as the Anglican prayer book says, “through negligence, through weakness, or through our own deliberate fault.” We still mess up and make mistakes. We still sin, but a much better definition of sin is when we put ourselves first at the expense of others, God, and creation. As a reminder of this, the word sin has ‘I’ in the middle. This definition of sin is firmly aligned with the two great commandments of loving God and loving others, or as Jesus summed it up , “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Matthew 7: 12).
One of the greatest expressions of individualism creeping into the church is the focus of sin being all about us. We have even made the consequences of sin all about us — our salvation or our souls. Forgiveness is not all about ‘me’, it is about relationship! If I do something that hurts someone else, am I forgiven for my own sake? No, that is just one half of the relationship equation, for not only do I want forgiveness, I want to know that ‘we are good’, that our relationship will continue, and that everything will be okay. We don’t only say the first line of the Lord’s prayer, “Forgive us our sins” but add the second line, “in the same way we forgive those who sin against us.” We ask to be reconciled to God and reconciled to others through mediating forgiveness. God cares about people and creation, and as we are shown mercy so we show mercy to others.
Now, with regard to sin, there are two mistakes we can make. The first is, when we mess up, to to run and hide in our treehouses, and the second is to withhold forgiveness from someone. Why? Because both prevent reconciliation from taking place.
Of course, whenever we hurt another person or hurt creation, through putting ourselves first, we also hurt God. Why? Because we are all God’s children, and other people and creation matter to God, however, it is the very fact that we are God’s children that means we can, “approach boldy the throne of grace.” We have been reconciled to God and nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing. But more than that, God understands our weakness. We do not have a distant, aloof God, but a God who came to meet us through Jesus Christ, who lived and struggled and ate and laughed and felt the pain of loss and bereavement; a God who gave everything so that we might be reconciled to God forever.
The approach to God’s throne is a well-worn path that Christians have often trod. Today, if you have messed up and fallen short of the person you hoped to be, you are not alone. If you are living in fear of punishment or rejection, hiding in a treehouse, then come down and come home, for God is waiting for you and longing to dispense grace and mercy. God loves you and nothing will ever change that or take it away. If someone has hurt you and you are holding back forgiveness, difficult as it is, I hope and pray you will be able to be gracious and merciful. If you are struggling, you are also not alone. Talk to someone about it. Reach out and ask for prayer and support. We need each other.
The truth is that God will never turn us away and will never reject us. We have nothing to fear. Like my mom, when I smashed that window, God welcomes us with open arms, invites us into a loving embrace, and says to us, “Come and have your dindins.”
Amen.
Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea,
a great High Priest whose name is “Love,”
who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands;
my name is written on His heart;
I know that while in heav’n He stands,
no tongue can bid me thence depart;
no tongue can bid me thence depart.
When Satan tempts me to despair,
and tells me of the guilt within,
upward I look and see Him there
who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died,
my sinful soul is counted free;
for God the Just is satisfied
to look on Him and pardon me;
to look on Him and pardon me.
Behold Him there, the risen Lamb!
My perfect, spotless Righteousness;
the great unchangeable I AM,
the King of glory and of grace!
One with Himself I cannot die;
my soul is purchased with His blood;
my life is hid with Christ on high,
with Christ my Savior and my God;
with Christ my Savior and my God!
