I Desire Mercy

Hey everyone.
It has been a pretty crazy summer for me and my family.  Since the end of the school year,we have driven to St Louis, spent four days with my Mom and Dad, went to the Reach Conference, closed on a house, moved and spent a week a Teen Camp.  We are all pretty tired.

Anyway, I have been studying something in Matthew 12 that has really moved my heart and I want to share it with you.  In Matthew 12:1-8 we see that Jesus and his disciples were walking through a grain field on the Sabbath and picking and eating grain.  Jesus received some criticism from the Pharisees for this, because picking a few heads of grain and rubbing them in their hands would be considered "harvesting" and "winnowing" on the Sabbath.  this was forbidden by Rabbinic law because they sought to make it absolutely impossible to break the Sabbath by making almost everything unlawful on the Sabbath.  God's plan for the Sabbath was that it was a day of rest, and was designed to help people.  The Pharisees, however, had made Sabbath laws such a burden for everyone, that no one was helped by it.  As they usually did, the Pharisees were missing the point.

As Jesus makes his defense, he makes three references to the Old Testament.  First, he talks about David and his men eating the consecrated bread in I Samuel 21.  He also makes reference to the priests offering the sacrifices on the Sabbath.  This is labor, but the priests are held innocent.  The third O.T. reference is the one that I want to focus on.  Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6.  He says to the Pharisees, "If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent."  Jesus quotes from Hosea the prophet, which tells the story of God's incredible love for Israel and the mercy he extends towards them.  What I learned was that this was the second time that Jesus had quoted this same scripture to the Pharisees. Back in Matthew 9:13, as the Pharisees are asking Jesus's disciples why he eats with tax collectors and sinners, he tells them to go learn what this means; "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." So first he tells them to learn what it means.  They clearly do not.  The second time, he tells them that if they understood, they wouldn't treat people the way that do.  The Pharisees were big on sacrifice, small on mercy.

It strikes me that this concept must be pretty important if God says it in Hosea and Jesus quotes it, not once, but twice in Matthew. So then, what does it mean.  Is Jesus down on sacrifice?  I don't think so.  God commands sacrifice in the Old Testament, and I believe that He is pleased with us when we sacrifice today for contribution, Special Contribution or sacrifice our time to serve others, or to further the kingdom. But think about this, if what God really desires is mercy, but  he is not down on sacrifice, then in what high esteem does God hold mercy? The Pharisees extended very little mercy, and Jesus called them on it twice.  This is a game-changer for me.  God is looking at my relationships.  Does he see mercy being extended? Do I extend mercy to my family? Do I extend it to those in my ministry?  Do I extend it to my students?  Do I extend it to the poor, by serving them?  These are the questions I am asking myself.  I have seen how anger has not produced the behavior I desire in others (The Bible (James 1:20) is right about that one), so I am going to try being more merciful for a while and see how this works. 

Tom