God of Mercy

We talk frequently about the grace of God and how amazing it is. We also talk frequently about the mercy of God, which is also amazing. But did you know that mercy and grace are not the same things?

God's grace is His free gift to us of things we have not earned. God's mercy is when He does not give us the full weight of the very hard things we have earned. So grace is when we get what we do not deserve, and mercy is when we do not get what we do deserve. 

And Ezra reminds us that God punishes us far less than we deserve. 

It's an interesting statement to make, coming back to a Temple that lays in ruins, a massive pile of rubble that used to be God's holy city, after decades of exile in a foreign land under pressure to serve foreign gods and completely cut off from the most holy places of your own heart. Standing in the ruins of a life long gone, bent under the weight of exile, attacked on every side from those who don't want to see Jerusalem rebuilt for the Jews, Ezra declares: 

You, Lord, have not punished us near as much as we deserve.

Wow. 

I have to be honest and say that a little bit of God's punishment feels like far too much for me. A little bit of destruction is a heavy burden to bear. A little bit of exile, of that feeling of not being at home, at knowing how far away I am from the holy place where I want to be...that's enough. It's almost too much.

There just doesn't seem to be a bone in my body that's ever willing to say, "You know, that punishment wasn't really severe enough." Punishment feels severe. Exile feels severe. And if at any point it would start to seem in my brain that it wasn't, I'm pretty sure the rubble would remind me. I'm pretty sure the little bits of what was once holy blood that now dotted the broken pieces of what used to be a glorious Temple would tell me exactly how severe God's punishment has been. 

Yet, Ezra says, in full recognition of the depth of sin in God's people, that it wasn't nearly as much as they deserved. 

He's right. I just don't think I'd be saying that out loud. 

He's right because our sin is devastating. It ought to cut us off harshly. It ought to ruin everything. Were it not for God's great love for us, it would have. But thankfully, God's love comes with an eye toward our weakness and failure, and it is full of amazing things. Like grace. 

Like mercy.