Compassion and Mercy
Theme for the Week
Reflection By Scott Stoner
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
- Psalm 51:1 (NIV)
Mercy is a word that is found repeatedly in the Bible. Sometimes it appears when a person is asking for God to have mercy on them. Other times it appears when talking about how God or Jesus shows mercy on those who are suffering in some way. Some passages exhort believers to show mercy to others.
This week’s reflections will focus on the relationship between compassion and mercy. We learned previously that one definition of compassion is “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” One initial way to think about mercy is that it is the way we put our desire to alleviate another person’s suffering into action. An act of mercy is an expression of compassion.
Mercy can be expressed in several ways, including visiting people who are sick or imprisoned, feeding those who are hungry, providing clothing and housing for people in need, forgiving, offering comfort to those who are afflicted, and praying for others.
In yesterday’s reflection, Chris Yaw, with the help of author Henri Nouwen, reminded us that “compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.” This week we will explore how mercy calls us more deeply into that “full immersion.”
Making it Personal: What initial thoughts do you have about the relationship between compassion and mercy? Can you think of a time when someone showed mercy to you? How about a time when you showed mercy to someone else? How did it feel?