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God's Mercy


 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? As he says in Hosea:
“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;
    and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”
and,
“In the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’
    there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”
Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:
“Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,
    only the remnant will be saved. For the Lord will carry out
    his sentence on earth with speed and finality.”
It is just as Isaiah said previously:
“Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
    we would have been like Gomorrah.” (Romans 9:22-29)

            How could God wipe out all those people in Sodom and Gomorrah, people minding their own business, living their own lives? What possible harm were they? What about all those other nations that God told Israel to destroy completely? There were kids in those towns. It’s easy to think God is too harsh when He brings judgment on people that we imagine to be undeserving.
            Then there are those other folks: the ones about whom we used to say “nuke’em ‘til they glow then shoot them in the dark,” and the ones about whom some say that they hope they choke on their Chick-Fil-E sandwiches and die, and the ones about whom some say shouldn’t be allowed to procreate. No punishment is too severe for those who fail to measure up to certain standards.   
            Jonah comes to mind. Nineveh was the worst of Los Angeles, New York and Washington, DC combined. What’s more, the people of Nineveh were Israel’s enemies. They had treated Israel badly over the years. But that’s where God sent Jonah. I don’t suppose that Jonah was quite as unpleasant as the Beast when he unsuccessfully invited Belle to dinner, but he neither expected nor wanted the Ninevites to accept. And, “dog-gone-it,” they repented. (“Curses, foiled again!) From Jonah’s perspective, it was the worst possible ending to a horrible story.
            What if God’s wrath isn’t meant (just) to punish the wicked, but to give them an opportunity to repent?  What if the goal of repentance isn’t just to avoid punishment? What if it’s God? So often, we don’t know the whole story. If we did, we would recognize God’s mercy.

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