We really can’t overemphasize the importance of Mercy in the meaning of the Gospel.

Mercy is central to the transformative power of the Gospel, central to Jesus’ teachings, and to the ways he embodied God’s love, central to a faithful life and witness. 

Mercy is also, I’m coming to see, central to the deepest spiritual needs of so many of us in our day, as in Jesus’ time.

How many folks need some more Mercy in our lives? How many folks are in need of receiving Mercy? How many folks are in need of giving Mercy, of becoming more merciful?  In our hearts, in our families, in our communities, in our society, in our world, how much do we suffer to due mercilessness? How much is Mercy, shared Mercy, Mercy received and mercy given, how much is Mercy at the heart of what our hearts need?

Mercy, I’m glad to report, is key to the central stories and the central symbols and the central teachings of the Christian faith.

One of the central symbols for Mercy in our faith is death & resurrection.

In the words of Nadia Boltz-Weber, which I quoted a couple of weeks ago: “The Christian faith, while wildly misrepresented in so much of American culture, is really about death and resurrection. It’s about how God continues to reach into the graves we dig for ourselves and pull us out, giving us new life. In ways both dramatic and small.”

What does this mean, “graves we dig for ourselves?” It includes, I believe, the graves that others try to dig for us, and that we try to dig for others. It means trying to force an end of what is possible, demanding that this is the bitter end. It means mercilessness: we are defined or define others by the harshest judgment, condemnation, damning one’s very being to a dead-end.

It’s from these graves that God rescues us, and gives us, gives others, gives all of humanity, new life, new chances, new possibilities, new dignity, new value.

The Gospel is about God’s tremendous Mercy.

It’s the tremendousness of God’s Mercy that is, I’ve come to see, central to the drama the Resurrection stories, which we’ve been exploring in this Easter season, these strange and mysterious stories about Jesus’ followers encountering him after his death.

Despite people doing the worst that they could do to him, despite suffering the most despicable acts of human evil, despite Jesus’ friends and allies abandoning him in his hour of need, Jesus kept loving them, Jesus kept showing them that God loves them. He refused to condemn them to the dead-end of their worst deeds. “Forgive them, they know not what they do.”

The Resurrection stories illustrate that nothing can kill God’s Love, that the abundance of God’s Mercy knows no bounds.

After Jesus’ death, his disciples could have been left to wallow in their shame and guilt and regret and fear and disappointment in the aftermath of them having abandoned him to the powers of evil. That could have been the end of the story. Well, here we have another so-called savior for the dustbin of history, who failed his people and whose people failed him.

Instead, something else happened, something that caused an astonishing outbreak of new life among the disciples who suddenly wouldn’t stop running around and talking about the Love and Mercy that God had shown them.

When they talked about how they had come to know God’s Love and Mercy, they told stories like the story we just heard.

These are not stories of someone’s ghost keeping a death-grip onto this world after their traumatic demise so they can haunt and harass those who had done them wrong and let them down. Those kinds of stories are very common the world over.

Instead, the Gospel stories are stories of transformation, of a changed mode of life and love – not just changed, but amplified, a new mode of Christ’s existence that brings new life, abundance, and mercy.

To put it simply: The Resurrected Christ just won’t stop feeding people!

A couple of weeks ago we heard the story about how the Resurrected Christ was revealed on the road to Emmaus in the moment when he broke bread with his old friends.

And this week we have this story about the outrageous haul of fish that the Resurrected Christ helped his friends catch. Then when they came to shore Jesus was already there with a fire going to roast some fish for breakfast. Of course, he also had bread to share.

Just imagine how these experiences would have felt to the disciples in the aftermath of the catastrophe of the crucifixion. What Mercy. What an embodiment of unconditional love.

It’s right after this story, that Jesus turned to Peter, who had denied him three times during that fateful final week. Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” Peter says “Yes.” Again, Jesus asks “Do you love me?” “Yes,” Peter replies. A third time, “Do you love me?” “Yes.”

“Then,” Jesus tells Peter, “Feed my sheep.” Share this Mercy. Share the abundance of God’s unconditional love, nourishment for new life, continued life, abundant life, beyond the bounds of what we believe to be bitter ends.

Folks are hungry for this abundant Mercy. This world is desperate for it.

Thanks be to God.

Delivered Sunday, April 21, 2024, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge, an Open & Affirming congregation.