I experienced mercy yesterday
I
took a day trip to the ADKs to go skiing.
My wife stayed home and cleaned the house, and as soon as I came in the
door, she asked me if I had paid a ticket I had received back in September for
a cell phone violation. You see, I had
plead guilty and thought I had paid the ticket, but then a notice arrived in
January that said – pay by March 31 or your license is suspended. I tucked that away thinking I’d pay it soon,
but forgot all about it until yesterday.
Back
in the ADKs, I had just turned onto route 8 and started to accelerate too fast
up a hill and didn’t realize that I was over the speed limit until I glimpsed
the state trooper coming at me. As he
passed me he was already turning around and soon pulled me over. He took my license and registration but was
back in two minutes, asking “sir, why is your license suspended?” Oh, No, I thought to myself. The officer informed me that I was driving with
a suspended license and that by all rights he should tow my car and handcuff me
and take me to the JP for arraignment.
After a couple minutes on the phone, he came back and told me that this
was my lucky day. That he was going to
let me go. To pay the ticket on Monday,
and don’t get stopped along the rest of my drive home.
As
I drove away, I felt an incredible sense of guilt – like I should have incurred
the wrath of justice, and I didn’t dare rejoice in the officer’s mercy until I
pulled into the driveway without having been stopped again. I felt so ashamed that I didn’t even tell my
wife, until right now that is, and my guilt was compounded when she asked me,
right after I walked in, if I had taken care of that ticket yet.
That’s
the closest thing I know of to describe mercy – it is a free gift to us. When we are in our sin, guilty and ashamed,
and we receive forgiveness which we don’t deserve, when it’s the wrath of justice
we deserve.
And
that is reason to celebrate today! For
it is not a $500 fine and points on our license that we truly deserve. It is eternal punishment that by our sins we
deserve. Yet God so loves us that He
sent His Son to suffer and die for us, to bear the punishment that we deserve,
so that we may have mercy.
And
as great as the mercy shown by the State Trooper yesterday seemed to me, that
is but a drop in the ocean of God’s mercy.
If that isn’t good news, if that isn’t THE Good News of the Gospel, I
don’t know what is.
The only way I know to react to the
great abyss of God’s mercy is to be thankful.
From the heart thankful. So
thankful that I resolve not to sin any more.
And then to look for all the ways in my day to day living in which I,
too, may show mercy. Forgiveness. God’s love.
That, my brothers and sisters, is God’s call to each of us today – as
our trespasses have been forgiven, let us forgive any and all who may trespass
against us.
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