“Blessed are the Merciful: for they shall inherit mercy.” (Matthew 5:7)
“I don’t want to have a heart that is boiling like a volcano.” (Farid Ahmed, survivor of Mar 15 New Zealand mosque attacks when asked why he forgives the shooter. Quoted in Time, April 15, 2019 issue)
“Therefore, my son, see that you are merciful unto your brethren; deal justly, judge righteously, and do good continually; and if ye do all these things then shall ye receive your reward; yea, ye shall have mercy restored unto you again; ye shall have justice restored unto you again; ye shall have good rewarded unto you again.” (Alma 41:14)
Mercy is the quality of forgiveness that is directed toward an offender, or perceived offender. The Lord extends mercy to us if we also forgive those who we judge have trespassed against us. ” For, if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you; But if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (3 Nephi 13:14-15)
“My disciples, in days of old, sought occasion against one another and forgave not one another in their hearts; and for this evil they were afflicted and sorely chastened. Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin. I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men….” (D&C 64:8-11)
The Lord teaches by example how He extends mercy. First of all He says that if we repent of our sins He will remember them no more. (D&C 58:42). Secondly, He says that he will cover our sins by appealing to the Father to remember His sacrifice. In the intercessory prayer to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane, Christ prays: “I pray for them (those that believe in Him). I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me…Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. Neither pray I for these alone (His disciples), but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.” (John 17: 9,20) He extends His mercy to us by pleading for us to the Father. He asks the Lord to extend His mercy to cover not only Himself and His disciples, but over all of us, if we believe in Him. “Holy Father, please watch over these like a sentinel. Protect and guard them using your power, so that that they may be united as one, as we are united as one.” (Testimony of John 11:31)
It is pretty clear that we are required to forgive others if we expect to be forgiven of our sins, but how far do we go in forgiving them? The Savior explains that we are to follow Him in doing what He does. It is required of us to extend not only our forgiveness to others, but also our mercy. How do we, as mere sinful creatures, do that? Christ had the power to forgive sins, which shocked the Pharisees and scribes when he declared forgiveness to others within their hearing. They didn’t realize, and perhaps we share that fault, that every soul has the power within them to be Saviors and extend the same mercy to others. How so?
Consider this statement by Denver Snuffer: “To obtain perfect charity…a man must make intercession for those who offend him…He wants us to go beyond merely forgiving others. He wants us to become like Him and atone or cover the sins of others. Through intercession on behalf of our enemies, we not only learn to understand Him, we also learn to be like Him. This is what Christ did. This is what Stephen did. All those who have the hope of Christ within them will do likewise.” (Come Let Us Adore Him p.231)(note1). Christ wants us to become intercessors, to be saviors. We can do that by not only forgiving those who we believe have wronged us, but plead for their well being. Perhaps that is what the Savior has in mind when he says we should pray for our enemies (Matt 5:44). By doing so we relieve them of the burden of having to account for the sin to us, because we will not be the accuser; if there is no accuser, can there be a sin to account for? Joseph Smith is quoted saying this: ” If you do not accuse each other, God will not accuse you. If you have no accuser you will enter heaven, and if you will follow the revelations and instructions which God gives you through me, I will take you into heaven as my back load. If you will not accuse me, I will not accuse you. If you will throw a cloak of charity over my sins, I will over yours-for charity coverth a multitude of sins.” (DHC 4:445)
“To be forgiven we must forgive. Not just forgive but plead for mercy for those who have offended us. The role of accusing is left to ‘the accuser of the brethren’ or Satan. When we accuse others, we interfere with their salvation. If we are the one who was offended, and we make no accusation against them, then we become their savior….We mimic Christ, follow His example, and in out own limited way, also atone for the sins of others…” (Denver Snuffer, “Remembering the Covenant, Vol 2”, pp. 764-765)
A wonderful example of mercy is Corey Tin Bloom. During
World War 2 she and her sister had been sent to a German concentration camp after having been arrested for hiding Jews in their house in Amsterdam. Corey survived, but her sister did not. After the war she became a very popular Christian speaker traveling around the world delivering a message of hope and forgiveness. Several years after the war, speaking at one Christian gathering where hundreds of people had gathered to hear her inspirational message, a man and his wife approached her afterwards to thank her for her moving talk. Corey recognized him as a former guard at the concentration camp where he had brutally treated her and her sister. She spent some moments of internal conflict and struggle trying to decide whether to let her anger and revulsion boil out of her, for which she was perfectly justified in doing by denouncing the man. Instead, she let Christ-like mercy take place and decided to forgive the man in her heart and let the anger pass. She became his savior in that she decided to be merciful and did not denounce him, even though he deserved the worst judgement that could be given to him. She consented to “cover” his sins perpetrated against her.
The other example I wanted to mention is the Savior Himself. No one has been treated more brutally and fiercely than Christ, and yet he asked the Father to cover the sin of the Romans and the Jews. He begged the Father to forgive them, “For they know not what they do!” Does anyone really understand the consequences and eternal ramifications, both to their victim and to themselves, when they inflict pain or suffering on another human being? The Lord does not want to be an accuser of anyone, no matter how heinous and terrible their actions. His hand of mercy is stretched out to all, still.
There is another type of mercy that is associated with forgiveness of those who have directly offended us. There is a mercy we need to extend to those who may have hurt us indirectly, maybe even unknowingly. Some harbor deep seated resentments against political figures they think have abused their power, and in doing so, have earned their ire. There have been religious leader, present and past, that some may feel have also abused power and the people they should have protected. These leaders may be dead wrong, but if we are to practice mercy we should pray for them, and forgive them, and beg for the Lord’s mercy on them.
In addition to the mercy of forgiving that we can extend to another person there is also the mercy we show towards others in performing charitable acts and kindness, especially to strangers and people others regard as the lowest of the low. In a way, the mercy we show towards these people is a sort of forgiveness that we offer to them. We forgive them for being poor, or for not being like us. We look beyond appearances and see them as valuable souls, children of God; worthy of our time, attention, and resources. After all, it may be that the Lord looks more kindly upon the poor and homeless then upon the rest of us.
A fourth aspect of mercy involves being merciful to our neighbors and sharing the news of the Gospel of Life. Like the sons of Mosiah, a person receiving God’s mercy can not stand that any soul not receive an opportunity to accept the Gospel of Christ. Saul also felt such remorse for the actions he did against the members of the Church of Christ, that he sought to repay the mercy He was given by being merciful.
We have reached the point in the progression of the beatitudes that from now on it is all about how we treat our fellow man. The first four beatitudes are all about turning to God, worshiping him with all our hearts, seeking forgiveness and mercy. If we follow the progression of the beatitudes and having received forgiveness and a greater hope of salvation, the next steps will involve loving our neighbor and having a desire to share the message with others. Coming up, we will explore what it means to be pure in heart, a peacemaker, and to be persecuted.
(note 1) Thanks to Susie in the SWUDOC fellowship who brought some of these quotations to my attention earlier this week. They were just what I needed to finish this post.