The "Newtonian" Moral Law of Jesus on Mercy - Monday of the Second Week of Lent

In the First Reading of Monday of the Second Week of Lent (Daniel 9:4b-10), we see Daniel making a prayer of petition to God for His forgiveness, on behalf of the Israelites, acknowledging their sins with contrition and penance, during the 70 years of the Babylonian captivity (Daniel 9:2; Jeremiah 25:11; 29:10). Obviously, Daniel made prayer appeal to God’s compassion and mercy, saying:

But to the Lord, our God, belong compassion and forgiveness, though we rebelled against him and did not hear the voice of the LORD, our God, by walking in his laws given through his servants the prophets (Daniel 9:9-10).

And God is, indeed, merciful (i.e. Psalm 103:1-18; 145:8-9), as He made a new covenant with those repenting Israelites for the post-exilic renewal:

See, days are coming—oracle of the LORD—when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. They broke my covenant, though I was their master—oracle of the LORD. But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days—oracle of the LORD. I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people. They will no longer teach their friends and relatives, “Know the LORD!” Everyone, from least to greatest, shall know me—oracle of the LORD—for I will forgive their iniquity and no longer remember their sin (Jeremiah 33:31-34).

The theme of mercy is reflected also in the Gospel Reading (Luke 6:36-38), which begins with these words of Jesus:

Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful (Luke 6:36).

Jesus wants us not just to seek mercy from God but to be merciful to one another, as the Father is merciful to us. As God mercy is applied to forgive us, as reflected in Daniel’s prayer to God in the First Reading (Daniel 9:4b-10), our mercy to each other is expressed as we forgive one another – and as we also love our enemies, not just those who love us, for Jesus commands us to be merciful as the Father is, to give his reason for teaching to love our enemies (Luke 6:27-26). Thus, loving our enemies means that we forgive them out of mercy, in imitating the mercy of the Father, who is kind and merciful, therefore, forgives.

Then, in the rest of the Gospel Reading (Luke 6:37-38), Jesus teaches us not to judge, not to condemn, but to forgive others (v. 37). It is because we will be judged if we judge others, will be condemned if we condemn others, and will be forgiven if we forgive others, out of mercy.

This is like Newton’s Third Law on the equal amount of force and counterforce, Jesus is teaching us the moral reciprocity in terms of  judging, condemning, and forgiving, though he commands us against Lex Talionis, the law of retribution (Luke 6:29; cf. Matthew 5:38-42).

Basically, Jesus is telling us, if we do not want others to judge us, then, do not judge them, if we do not want them to condemn us, then, do not condemn them, and if we want to be forgiven by others for our offenses against them, then, forgive them when they offend us. And forgiving those who offend us, because we want those whom we have offended to forgive us, is the principle behind Jesus’ command to love our enemies in his fulfilling interpretation of Leviticus 19:18. We are not to limit our love to those who love us but also those who hate us, offend us, and persecute us.

If we seek mercy from God for our offense against Him, then, we must be merciful to others, just as God is. This way, we can truly love our enemies, overcoming our intuitive urges to strike them back for their offenses against us.

Thus says Jesus:

Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you (Luke 6:38).

Yes, this is just like the Newton’s Third Law on force and counterforce, and reiterating these words of Jesus:

Do to others as you would have them do to you (Luke 6:31).

According to this, we need to be merciful to others, if we want others to be merciful to us. It would be too selfish to expect God or others to be merciful to us for our offenses but if we cannot be merciful to those who offend us. Our failure to be merciful to others may result in God’s severe judgement against us, Jesus teaches this through his parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:21-35). Rather, we shall be more like the father of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), to be merciful to others as the Father is merciful to us (Luke 6:36).

We must remember that Jesus offered himself up on the Cross for out atonement with God. Jesus is not only the Paschal Lamb as Korban Pesach but also our Yom Kippur sacrifice, Korban Asham so that we become the beneficiaries of the Father’s mercy. Knowing this, how can we fail to be merciful to others, especially to our enemies who offend us? How can we not to be merciful as the Father is merciful, then?

As we move toward the Cross on our Lenten journey, let us remember that we are benefited from the Father’s mercy through Jesus’ sacrificial offering on the Cross. This way, we will not forget his command for us to be merciful as the Father is merciful – to be merciful to others as we want them to be merciful. This is not only to reflect Luke 6:31 to do to others as to be done to us by them but also Leviticus 19:18 to love neighbors as ourselves.