Beauty: Those Who Give Mercy

Continuing with my series on the Beatitudes as seen through the eyes of Brian Zahnd in his book, Beauty Will Save the World, today's post will be on the fifth beatitude:

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy." (Matt. 5:7)

"Blessed are those who give mercy,

for they will get it back when they need it most."

(paraphrase by B.Zahnd)

If we wonder what Jesus is like, we can see it in the beatitudes. "Jesus is drawn to the poor and sorrowful, and he stands up for the meek and persecuted. Jesus exhibits justice and mercy, and he endorses purity and peacemaking. This is what Jesus is like...Getting Jesus right is absolutely essential if we are to recover the beauty of Christianity, because Jesus is the beauty of Christianity!"

Even though scriptures are full of stories of those who have seen God, the apostle John says in the prologue to the gospel of John that no one has seen God. In other words, any encounter that a human has with God is partial and biased and can't be trusted to be the definitive word on what God is like. John continues his sentence by saying that "It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known."

Only in Jesus do we see what God is really like, and in this mercy beatitude we see a core characteristic of God the Father. The only people Jesus was not merciful towards were those who were not merciful.

The author points out that this Mercy Beatitude needs to be understood alongside the Justice Beatitude that comes before it; however, "Living in the tension of justice and mercy can at times place us in difficult dilemmas. When should we press for justice, and when should we plead for mercy?...when in doubt, go with mercy. Mercy should be our default mode. The apostle James said it like this: 'Judgement will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment'...If our churches are to be anything like a shelter from the storm, we must become famous for our mercy...Why were sinners attracted to Jesus...? In Jesus they found mercy."

The sixth beatitude is next: "Blessed are those who have a clean window into their soul, for they will perceive God when and where others don't."