As a community we gather four times a day (morn., noon, eve., and night) to pray the psalms (Liturgy of the Hours). Recently at noonday prayer a line from Psalm 101 struck me. God was talking to the people and said:
“The theme of my song is mercy and justice.”
This is a powerful thought for Lent as the Church reminds us of our sinfulness and God’s forgiving love. We never have to worry about God’s forgiving us. Again and again we succumb to our innate weaknesses, but God is always present, giving us wisdom and strength to avoid their traps. Then, when we fall anyway, God is still there to pick us up and give us what we need keep going.
“The theme of my song is mercy and justice.”
God loves to sing the mercy song. This shows up again and again in the gospels. When Jesus encounters sin or other need in people, he doesn’t ask: “Why did/didn’t you do this/or that?” Instead, mercy is always his response, no matter how serious the sin, but some people might say, “Where’s the justice? It is a song of mercy and justice.”
When most of us think of justice in this context, we often think of equalizing things by paying some price. But our sin was paid for in advance for all eternity with the life and death of Jesus Christ. There is an inexhaustible fund of divine mercy that covers all sin, past, present, and that which is yet to be committed. All we have to do is ask from a sincere heart.
All year long the Church reminds us of God’s endless love by celebrating the life of Jesus on earth. This week, however, is called Holy Week because we are called to focus on the unimaginable lengths this love was willing to go. We are reminded that God’s only Son freely stepped from the glory of heaven to the brokenness of earth. And that love in human flesh was willing to go even further. Jesus moved from being son of a carpenter and a wandering preacher to a rabble rouser hung on a cross as a heretic and traitor. This love story, however, has a surprising and glorious end which the Church celebrates on Easter. Jesus not only returns to his throne next to his Father, but makes it possible for us to return to his Father with him.
For Jesus the path back to heavenly glory was, by his choice, deliberately difficult (“Father, not my will but thine”). Can we expect anything less if we choose to walk in his footsteps? He lived his Father’s song in human flesh so we could do the same, each in our own way. If each of us weaves that song into our day-to-day living, we will bring more peace into our personal life, that of those around us, and the world at large. Happy Easter!
“The theme of my song is mercy and justice.”
