How Mercy Season fits into the bigger story of God's campaign   

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Mercy achieves all three goals of God's campaign to connect, heal, and bless the world: 

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• It is only by the mercy of the cross that we can CONNECT with God at all.

• Mercy brings HEALING to others and to us. When we forgive, that act allows us to heal from the wounds others inflicted on us.

• Mercy BLESSES us with the confidence that God is for us and that he enables us to forgive others. This is so liberating and inspiring!

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Here is a preview of some of the perspectives on mercy in the biblical books we will read during Mercy Season: 

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Old Testament

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• Genesis 37-50 (the Joseph story): Joseph's eleven brothers sold him into slavery. What the brothers meant for evil, God used for good. Over the years, God directed Joseph's life to get him out of slavery and into a position of power in Egypt. God also directed the lives of Joseph's brothers and put them at Joseph's mercy.  Instead of using his political power to execute them, Joseph spectacularly forgave and rescued them.

• Leviticus: The priesthood, sacrifices, celebrations, and community regulations that kept Israel connected to her merciful God

• Jeremiah: The "Weeping Prophet" urged Israel to accept conquest and exile as God's judgment, but he predicted that God's mercy would bring them back to their homeland.

• Hosea: The poster child for how to show mercy. At God's instruction, he married a prostitute and stayed faithful.

• Jonah: The poster child for how not to do it, angry at God's mercy for the evil empire of Nineveh

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New Testament

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• Luke: Often called "the Gospel of Forgiveness," shows us how God's mercy reaches to outsiders in the most unexpected way.

• 1, 2, 3 John: Three short letters emphasizing the connection between receiving mercy and showing it.

• Jude: A reminder that false teachers who are in it for the money should expect no mercy from God or from us as his agents, even though we are merciful people.

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Looking back over all this, we gradually realize where and how we fit into this story, and a fantastic thought dawns on us--God is in the mercy business! Yes, he does judge, but only the bare minimum necessary. When he sends mercy, he extravagantly overdoes it.

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His campaign strategy is to show us mercy and then to send us out to spread his mercy so that all the ugly scars of humanity can be healed. But we must not mis-hear the mercy message or twist it as we pass it on. The campaign message of God's mercy cannot be twisted to say, "God is kind, that is, he is a nice god who will overlook a lot of things because he loves humanity and knows how weak we are." Neither can it be twisted to imply that our sins now are not serious problems because Christ's blood has already covered them. 

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The campaign message is, "Jesus died to show you the kind of mercy that will turn you into a merciful person." Jesus has assignments for you as part of his mercy campaign, so read the Bible as the story of that campaign. Get a feel for God's mercy. Get in SYNC with it.

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