I often wonder if many of us hear the language of mercy and misunderstand it. I think when many people who were raised in my generation and after hear about mercy, we think that it means that God looks down and sees our sins and chooses to ignore them. We act as though God is way up in heaven looking down and saying, “Yeah, that David Barnes is a total mess, but out of mercy I will just leave him being a total mess and kind of look the other way.” But, this is not mercy! God reached down to us in mercy. He reaches down and lifts us out of our mess! Mercy means that someone died for me! Christ did not die for me so that he could leave me in my sins. He died so that he could reach down and pick me up from my sins. He reached down so that he could lift me up. Mercy means someone died for me. Mercy means that Christ carries our humanity into the sanctuary of heaven. ~Fr. David Barnes, A Shepherd’s Post
