Apparently, one translation of the Greek phrase ‘Kyrie eleison’ is ‘Sir, take it easy.’
Christians are more familiar with ‘Lord, have mercy.’
But ‘Sir, take it easy’ strikes home with me.
It is sometimes said that mercy is not giving people bad things that they nevertheless deserve. But this can have problematic overtones.
I’ve heard it stated, or strongly implied, that in God’s measure of justice, even the slightest error warrants death. This is sometimes offered as the reason behind Jesus’s awful death: supposedly, he took the terrible punishment we deserve.
Again, I find this highly problematic.
It is not necessary to believe that Jesus undertook some cosmic legal penalty that God the Father required. Indeed, it seems more accurate to the events of Jesus’ suffering to say that Jesus bore the hate of the world, the awfulness of our sins. This fits with ideas we looked at earlier in this series when I wrote about the ballet Flight Pattern (Week 3, Day 3 ‘Overwhelmed’) and the time I took spikenard to church (Week 3, Day 6 ‘Fragrance’).
If God does require punishment, then the nature of his mercy changes. If mercy becomes about God waiving the worst kind of retribution, then anxiety follows – because he can still take out lesser levels of retribution. There is still fear of punishment.
However, in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word ‘chesed’ is translated as both love and mercy, depending on context. It’s God going easy on us, sometimes with no motive other than his selfless love for us.
A few years ago, I performed a radio play with some friends; one was very nervous. We worked around his anxieties through our rehearsals, though sometimes I suspected he was overplaying them.
We performed the play twice. The first time only had 22 people there, all very quiet and sedate; the second one was packed out. Later that night, I mentioned to God that it would have been nice if more people had seen the first performance.
I wasn’t expecting a response. But immediately, the Holy Spirit answered, ‘It was what he needed.’
I will never forget the clarity and compassion with which those words fell on me.
In that one moment, I glimpsed God’s gentleness, his chesed. I could never have guessed at it just from how I’d understood the Bible.
But it changed my understanding of mercy.
A short look at the Bible
Today’s passage is short and sweet: Zechariah 9:9–10. Zechariah was a post-exilic prophet. He played a big part in motivating the returned exiles to rebuild the temple. He also dabbled in the apocalyptic genre and wrote this poetic passage about Israel’s king. By the way, ‘Ephraim’ was another name for the northern kingdom in Israel.
You guessed it, Christians link this prophecy to Jesus. Mainly because he rode into Jerusalem, on a donkey, a week before his crucifixion. Also, though it’s counter-intuitive to us, Israelite kings rode on mules, not horses. (See, for example, 2 Samuel 13:29.)
This particular prophecy stresses how Israel’s king will be both victorious and humble — or rather, victorious and gentle.
Which is an unusual combination when you stop to think about it. The word for gentleness here is sometimes translated as ‘meek.’ It’s not about softness so much and it’s definitely not about shyness or weakness. Instead, it’s a word that that’s about how someone exercises power.
At the risk of including too many references to The Lord of the Rings, I’ll make one more comparison with Aragorn.
In one of their videos, the Cinema Therapy YouTube channel looks at how Aragorn doesn’t exhibit what they refer to as ‘toxic masculinity.’ It opens with this voiceover:
Alan Seawright: “He can decapitate orcs and write poetry.”
Jonathan Decker: “Yeah, they’re not mutually exclusive.”
Well, it made me laugh.
Notwithstanding the problematic dehumanisation of orcs, which I mentioned in yesterday’s reflection, I think there is something in this. The Cinema Therapy presenters discuss how Aragorn’s masculinity is not threatened by his sensitivity, his displays of emotion, or the fact that he has a shower of petals on his wedding day.
And while there shouldn’t be anything remarkable about this, it is remarkable. Because many troubling ideas about masculinity do exist.
In a similar way, there shouldn’t be anything remarkable about a king who is both victorious and gentle. But there is. Because the idea of redemptive violence is also very common.
And the Bible doesn’t make it easy when even Isaiah says things like, ‘with the breath of His lips, He shall slay the wicked.’ (Isaiah 11:4)
However, this might not mean what we think it means. Even when the apocalyptic prophecies show Jesus carrying a sword, that sword is not in his hand. It’s in his mouth. (I told you this genre was weird.)
It’s Jesus’s words that bring about victory.
Think about it: he answered every trick question thrown at him; he silenced people with his own questions.
He also discouraged his disciples from violence, healed a man whose ear was sliced off in a fight, and asked God to forgive his tormentors. Seriously, if redemptive violence was the answer, Jesus failed badly.
So we may not fully know what words like ‘rule,’ ‘kingdom,’ ‘power,’ ‘victory,’ and ‘might’ mean with Jesus. But we can know he’s not toxic.
Or to put it another way: his majesty is not threatened by his gentleness.
Invitation to pray
We each pray in our own way; some of the best advice I had was ‘Pray as you can, not as you can’t.’ So I offer an invitation to pray – not an instruction.
Thank Jesus for embodying the best of humanity and the fullness of God.
All posts in the series can be found via the tag Xmas2020.