In this final week of Lent, we come almost full circle back to where we started: a merciful God. The prayer now calls on God to “Have mercy on us and forgive us.” We call upon God, echoing the language of His self-revelation on Sinai (Exodus 34:6-7). In effect, like the lament Psalms do frequently, we are calling upon God to be God, to act in accordance with His own character and nature.
We have journeyed through sin. We have confessed our sin, acknowledged the ways in which sin has ruptured the relationship with God and neighbor, apologized, and committed to change. Now we ask for God to fulfill His end of the bargain, to have mercy and forgive us.
This may sound crass or transactional, but it is not. We have answered the call of God to come to Jesus, we have recognized that we have failed, and we expect the God who called us to be faithful. Not because God owes us anything, but because we are hoping that God is truthful and not vengeful or capricious. Not a trickster like some of the pagan gods but rather trusting that God is who He says He is. We have learned to expect the bait and switch based on our experience with everything and everyone that is not God.
If this God is who He says He is, then we want Him to be merciful and forgive us. If He is the good Creator God of the universe who wants to bring about life and flourishing, then we rightly want to be in relationship with Him. We want, as the prayer says, to “delight in your will and walk in your ways.”
But we have reason, maybe not good reason, to doubt. We know the story of our own failures, our own brokenness, our own times of not living up to our standards. We know our own hypocrisy, and we see it in other people all around us.
We remember the Palm Sunday story of Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey, with throngs of people exclaiming “Hosanna, Hosanna,” only to have those same people a few days later shouting “Crucify Him” with just as much, if not more, intensity.
We remember seeing the people who should have known and recognized Jesus be the ones leading the charge to murder Him.
We see those who traveled with Jesus during His earthly ministry, seeing all the wondrous works He did, hearing His teaching firsthand, learning the secret of His identity, and we wonder why they would all run away and leave Him. Was Jesus some sort of failure? Was He not really who He said He was? If those who knew Jesus in the flesh ran away from Him, can I trust that He really is who He says He is?
Can I trust that the God Jesus claims to embody is merciful and forgiving?
It is not God’s character we doubt, but our own ability to believe that such mercy could truly be for us. We do not think we are worthy of such mercy, so how could God think we are worthy?
Looking ahead at the events of Holy Week, we get glimpses that maybe, just maybe, we can trust that Jesus is the God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
We see Jesus’s heart in His high priestly prayer, His desire that through Him God’s desire to be in relationship with His people would be fulfilled (John 17). We see Jesus washing His disciples’ feet (John 13:1-17) and instituting the new covenant, of which His body and blood are the sign of the promise (Luke 22:13-23). Even on the cross we see Jesus granting mercy to the thief next to Him with the promise of paradise that very day (Luke 23:39-43). Most powerfully, we see Jesus asking God to forgive those who were crucifying Him (Luke 23:34).
And yet, as our journey together draws to a close, we have not reached our final destination. We are holding our breath, waiting for a sign that all this work of confessing, identifying, apologizing for sin, and promising change has not been in vain. That the God who self-identifies as merciful, loving, and forgiving is who He says He is.
We end our Lenten journey with Jesus in the tomb, waiting for morning.
Joshua Strickler 