Mercy

 

“… and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, on at the head and one at the feet.” John 20:12

Mercy.

It’s from the Latin, and it means “Price paid.”

The price that I SHOULD pay is one that I could never afford. The sin. The intentional and unintentional sin that has stained my life? Who can stand under it all?

Like Mary, I just wanted to see the One who’d taken all that I had done and had died for it. Naked and bleeding hanging on a cross, and now in a tomb.

I ran towards Him with all that I had and I tried in all the ways that my mind could imagine to get to Him. Church. Being good. Doing. Good.

It could never be enough. Finally, I was just so tired.  I remember just lying there crying. “I’m such a screw up God! I just can’t do it anymore! I can NEVER be good enough for YOU!” 

He waited.  I was alone and isolated like Mary at the well in the middle of the day.  Then He came to me IN my sin, and He said, “Neither do I condemn you; go and from now on sin no more.”

Mercy.

When she arrived at the tomb and saw the angels, one at the head and one at the feet itt was the mercy seat. Truly the price HAD been paid.

“one cherub on the one end and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece with the mercy seat  he made the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim spread out their wings above over shadowing the mercy seat with with their wings, with their faces one to another, toward the mercy seat were the faces of the cherubim.” Exodus 37:8-9

It was His plan all along. What she was seeing was no longer a seat of mercy made my man, but the TRUE and LIVING mercy seat of God with the bed clothes of Christ as it’s lid and the angels proclaiming His life! Her life.

My life.

The price had been paid and her eyes finally saw and her mind finally understood.

I find it interesting that she was there alone. God could have had a host of angels and every disciple and even the Pharisees to come see that He’d meant what He said! When He first went to her she was also alone, but this time it was different. She’d first encountered Him when her life was steeped in sin and now? Oh now, it was not a disciple or a Pharisee, but a woman who had been forgiven of so much! The price had been paid.

Today He still comes to me. He’s always the same. Full of mercy and ever so gentle. Our relationship is so different, more defined and less tangled. I am less tangled. He causes my heart to quicken when He’s speaking and I know when He’s speaking I’d best listen and act on what He says.

He does not have to speak a word, and yet He reminds me daily that I am continuing to receive mercy.