Mercy!
“One thing is needed. Mary has chosen the better part; it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:42)
My children ask for all sorts of things. Most of the time they really have no idea what they desire, much less what they truly need.
In a matter of seconds, our near-three-year-old can go from “more chicken, please,” to “I want to grow up and FLY!” to “Chicken … blegh! I want ice cream!” all the while pretending to be a tyrannosaurus rex.
His sister is much the same. So am I. So are you.
I have entire litanies of wants.
I want my family to be happy. I want to be good. I want—need—coffee. I want to run. I want to sit on the couch. I want you to be with me. I want you to leave me alone. I want this job. No—that job. I want to pray more. I want to pray. I want to hear God’s voice. I want my kids to be quiet. I want.
Our desires pull us in myriad directions. Our wants are as fickle as the Fraser Valley weather in February after an El Niño winter in the midst of a global climate crisis.
That is to say, to borrow a metaphor from Fr. Martin Laird, your wants—like all the voices in your head—are simply the weather. But you are not the weather. You are the mountain that the weather dances around.
Your wants—your desires—are just that, wants. They are not you.
You are no more your myriad longings than my two-year-old is a Tyrannosaurus rex.
Yet how quickly our litanies of wants turn into litanies of accusations against ourselves. I should pray more. I should spend more time with my kids. I should exercise. I should be better.
I wonder, does this sound like the voice of Lent to you? During this season of self-examination, does your sense of self tend more toward failure than toward forgiven? This, of course, would be a lie. And there is nothing so tortuous as believing lies about oneself.
But the power of Lent is entirely the other way around. It is about allowing the light to expose those lies and accepting the real truth about yourself: You are a child of God. You are beloved. You are forgiven. And, of course, that one truth of infinitely more worth: He is mercy.
Lent, you see, is about desire. But, ultimately, it is about God’s desire.
About God who says to his people, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.”
And, friends, the good news is that he is mercy. Mercy all the way down.
Lent does not begin with guilt, it begins with mercy. The mark of ash upon your forehead is death unless it is received in the form of the cross. That is, unless it is received as mercy.
Mercy was there before your sins— before your unending desires and thoughts—and mercy will be there after. Mercy—the face of Jesus—is as steadfast as the mountain of God while the winds and the waves come and go.
Mercy is nothing less than God’s infinite desire to be with us.
And repentance is nothing less than our “yes” to his eternal mercy.
One thing is needed. Let us sit in the presence of Jesus-who-is-mercy. Let us listen to the sweet voice of the one who speaks—no, who is—Truth. His word of Mercy is not like the fleeting weather of other voices. Mercy is steadfast and sure. Mercy is the first and the last. Mercy is the Lord’s eternal and good word: Forgiven.
Paul Robinson
March 5, 2024