I was born in the 80s and am a child of the 90s. Growing up, we didn’t have TikTok, we had TicTacs. Amazon was a jungle, Musk was an aftershave and multi-fluorescent shell suits were all the rage! But what we lacked in finesse, we made up for in movies. An absolute favourite of mine was The Karate Kid, with Daniel LaRusso and his sensei Mr Miyagi trimming bonsai trees, waxing cars and doing karate. And for every good guy there’s got to be a bad guy, right? Enter Johnny Lawrence stage left, the high school bully and top Cobra Kai student. He and Danny have a bust-up and Jonny puts Cobra Kai’s slogan into full effect. He shows ‘no mercy’.
I wonder, do we sometimes see God like a ‘no mercy’ karate sensei? (I bet that’s the first time you’ve been asked that question!) Maybe when we read the Old and New Testaments in isolation from each other, we can fall into the trap of thinking there are two different Gods. The God of the Old Testament is justice, but the God of the New is mercy. But here’s the deal – he is the same God, yesterday, today and forever. He is fully just and merciful.
Lamentations 3.22 reminds us that ‘his mercies never come to an end – they are new every morning’. With every sunrise, he radiates mercy. When we deserve justice, Jesus swaps it for mercy. When we deserve the leg sweep, he gives us the ‘All Valley Tournament trophy’ of tender and loving forgiveness. No mercy? No, God is Mercy. Capital M, full stop.
This reflection was written by spoken word artist Dai Woolridge, who is a Bible Communicator and Creative Specialist at Bible Society.
If you have two minutes: Listen to the audio reflection and ponder how it might be relevant in your life.
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