The Meaning of Mercy

Return of the Prodigal Son (c. 1669) by Rembrandt van Rijn

  

THE MEANING OF MERCY

 

April 11, 2021 is Divine Mercy Sunday in the Roman Catholic Church.

What is the meaning of mercy? Dawn Wilson at Christianity.com provides an excellent exposition of the Biblical meaning.

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Theologians have defined “mercy” in clear terms. In The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Edwards said it most graphically:

“God is pleased to show mercy to His enemies, according to His own sovereign pleasure. Though He is infinitely above all, and stands in no need of creatures; yet He is graciously pleased to take a merciful notice of poor worms in the dust.”

In a lighter vein, Millard Erickson wrote in Christian Theology,

“God’s mercy is His tenderhearted, loving compassion for His people. It is His tenderness of heart toward the needy. If grace contemplates humans as sinful, guilty and condemned, mercy sees them as miserable and needy.”

Scripturally, at the root of the word “mercy,” we find several Old Testament Hebrew words.

Mercy in Hebrew

Racham means “to love or have compassion,” to have a disposition of mercy (Psalm 116:5).

Kapporeth means “ransom” and it’s associated with the “mercy seat” in Scripture (Exodus 25:22).

Chesed means “goodness,” “kindness,” or “mercifulness” (Psalm 18:25).

Mercy in Greek

In the New Testament Greek, the words are Eleemon, meaning “to have pity on,” to “show compassion,” or to “be merciful;” (Matthew 5:7).

Oiktirmos also suggests compassion or pity. It’s the idea of divine forbearance in showing compassion and passing over sins. (Romans 12:1).

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https://www.christianity.com/wiki/christian-terms/what-is-mercy-why-is-it-important.html

—Dawn Wilson, “What Is Mercy? Bible Verses and Meaning,” Christianity.com (March 25, 2019)

“Be merciful just as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:36)

While the Bible is replete with demonstrations of God’s mercy, it is not as apparent based on Scripture how we are to implement Jesus’ command to exercise mercy towards others because we are not at all like God. We are not omnipotent, and we are sinners.

Mathew Schmalz in The Conversation defines mercy as “…a love that responds to human need in an unexpected or unmerited way.”

He deals with the question of how to show mercy toward others under contemporary conditions.

“Mercy begins by opening oneself to those with whom one might strongly disagree. Mercy doesn’t end there, of course, but it begins with such small acts of understanding, which can lead to life-changing experiences of love.”

https://theconversation.com/amp/what-is-the-true-meaning-of-mercy-72461

—Mathew Schmalz, “What Is the True Meaning of Mercy?” The Conversation (February 8, 2017)

My own take on this question is that showing mercy towards others is going to cost us something.

“Mercy presupposes an unequal relationship between those who give mercy and those who receive it, because to be merciful is to give what we possess, sometimes in abundance, to our neighbor, so that we ourselves in some way experience deprivation and want.”

https://poetryofgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2020/09/aphorisms.html

If being merciful doesn’t cost us anything, maybe we need to take a closer look at our deed and name it something else.