Advent Day Thirteen

Way back in 1961, there was a show called The Twilight Zone.  They were astute vignettes that always told a moral truth surrounded by an eerie set of circumstances.  “The Quality of Mercy” has become one of my favorites.  The story goes like this: It is 1944 and a squad of U.S. Soldiers have a squad of Japanese combatants pinned down in a cave.  The trapped Japanese are sick, wounded, starving and beaten.  A new lieutenant takes over as platoon leader and he wants his pound of flesh, specifically his pound of Japanese flesh.  The American squad leader and the rest of the squad are worn out from long years of hard combat and they would just as soon wait it out for the Japanese to surrender, after all, they were just soldiers like them.  The arrogant new lieutenant knows this and in spite of it all, orders the squad to attack the Japanese and kill them all.  

Then something happens that can only happen in the Twilight Zone, the lieutenant transforms into a Japanese platoon leader, the year is 1943, and it’s Americans this time that are holed up in the same cave, dirty, torn, starving, and beaten.  The lieutenant, who knows he is in reality an American soldier, but by some twist of fate is now a Japanese platoon leader, asks for mercy for the American soldiers.  The hard charging, devoid of compassion platoon leader saw what everyone else could see, that the defeated soldiers were men and that as men, they were deserving of mercy, even at the hands of their enemies.

Four times in the last half of Luke chapter 2, mercy is mentioned.

• v50 His mercy extends to those fear him, from generation to generation.

• v58 Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy and they shared her joy.

• v72 to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant

• vv77-78 to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.

The message of the Gospel birth narratives is above all else a message of mercy. This world is in deep need of and has been the recipient of the tender mercies of our God. It is a message that still resounds to us as we live in a fallen world, and are in need of God’s great mercy.  Friends, our sins have separated us from God and only He, in his mercy, can redeem us.