We're All Humans, Aren't We?

A Quality of Mercy, Part II

Part I can be found here.

Last week I talked about struggling with the uncomfortable fact that my brother-in-law’s accused killer and I both were sinners and we both equally needed God’s grace and mercy. As I sat through the trial throughout the week, I kept thinking about three different people: Moses, David and Spider-Man.

Moses is one of the most important figures in the history of Judaism and Christianity who is known for, among other things, helping free Israel from the oppressive force that was Egypt. Before all of the astounding events in Moses’ later life, there was a dark, atrocious act that he committed early on. In events recorded in Exodus 2, Moses was out in the fields watching his fellow Hebrew men work the field as slaves. (Moses was born as an Hebrew, but was raised in Pharaoh’s household.) He saw an Egyptian slavemaster pull aside a worker and beat him. Moses looked around to make sure no one else was around and murdered the slavemaster and hid his body in the desert sand. Moses, the man who helped lead Israel out of Egypt, was a murderer. And yet, God used him to, among other things, bring the ten commandments to us, one of which simply states “Thou shalt not murder.”

David, King David, is another important figure in Israel’s history because he helped usher in what would be Israel’s Golden Age. In the book of 2 Samuel, it records that one night, while walking around the palace roof, David spied Bathsheba, a naked, married woman bathing herself and fell in love with her. He ordered her to be brought around and had an affair with her that resulted in a pregnancy. In order to hide the affair from her husband, Uriah, David ordered him back home from war so he could sleep with his wife. Only, he didn’t, thinking it was not fair that he should enjoy such comforts of home while his mates were out in the fields at war. It was then that David ordered Uriah to the front lines knowing that he would be killed. Ordering a man killed after having an affair with his wife was a despicable act. And yet, the Bible calls David “a man after God’s own heart.” (Acts 13:22)

And finally, I kept thinking about Spider-Man. In the movie Spider-Man 3, Peter Parker AKA Spider-Man discovers the true identity of the man who killed his uncle, leaving his aunt as a widower. Filled with anger and rage, he hunts down the man and does an un-Spider-Man-like thing and tries to kill him. Unbeknowst to him, the man, Flint Marko, has been imbued with special superpowers making him difficult to kill. Towards the end of the movie, Flint confronts Peter, who has been stripped of his Spider-Man costume, and tearfully explains that Peter’s uncle’s murder was an accident. Flint had stolen money in order to finance his daughter’s surgery. Peter’s uncle was trying to convince Flint not to carjack his car for the getaway when the gun accidentally went off. Crying, Peter stands before Flint and forgives him, no longer full of the anger and rage that consumed him in the beginning. This was one of the most powerful messages of forgiveness to come out of Hollywood in a long time.

I kept thinking about those three men through the witnesses, evidence, and testimonies, through the closing arguments, and through the guilty verdict of premeditated murder. After the verdict came in, my family was called in to testify as character witnesses to share about how much this loss impacted them. After their testimonies, the soldier who was the reason for all of this took the stand and said, “I am absolutely sorry for the hurt I’ve done, for the pain I’ve brought upon you guys. I never meant for this to happen.” On the early morning of June 15, 2007, two men lost their lives, not just one. Two families were broken, not just one. Realizing this, my wife and her mother have chosen to forgive, hoping that with time served in prison and chances of parole down the road will allow the soldier to make something of himself.

Moses did. David did. God used these men despite the dark, despicable sins they both committed. Forgiveness, along with grace and mercy, is what we’re called to do as Christians because God has given us those three in spades. To deny forgiveness is to deny who God is and His mercy to us because what right do we have to deny someone mercy, but claim it for ourselves? It’s hard, but in the end, forgiveness is how we find freedom and how we begin to truly understand what God is like and what He has done for us.

I’d like to end this with a passage from William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. A couple quick things to put this in context for you. First, the word “strain’d” in the first line means “forced.” Second, what’s going on here is Portia, the character that’s being quoted here, is pleading for mercy for her client from Shylock, the Jew referred to in this passage, asking Shylock to not kill her client even though he legally deserves justice. This is a beautiful passage describing what mercy is and where it ultimately comes from.

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence ‘gainst the merchant there.

May God shower you with His grace and mercy today and forever.

-Matt