We make a habit of justification. We just want to explain. There was a reason we weren’t there. Something. Anything to avoid mercy.
A justification is often the grounding upon which we make a case. We hope that everything we do is justified. That’s how we often think about it. But it isn’t how we usually use them.
More often than not, we justify what we want so that we won’t feel bad about it later. It’s a logical and ethical shortcut.
We authorize certain things now so that when we get to it, we can skip the whole moral dilemma that surrounds them.
It is much easier to do things when we don’t have to evaluate them, isn’t it?
We’re on vacation.
They were just doing their job.
Anyone would do that.
We allow our brains to give out a kind of pre-clearance. Like the fast lane at the airport. These are the times in which the rules do not apply.
But a justification is little more than an excuse.
An excuse to break the rules and often not face any consequences.
On the other hand, we have mercy.
Mercy is an uncommon generosity. When we give mercy, we are not only forgiving someone for a wrong, we are attempting to restore the brokenness which results from it.
Through mercy, we acknowledge, not just that there is a problem in an objective sense, but that there is also a problem between us that can now be fixed.
Mercy is powerful. But even the thought of it can be threatening. Because it exposes justifications for what they are. We use them so we never have to say we’re sorry. Or worse, we try to prove we were never wrong!
And just as insidious is treating mercy like it is the problem. We’ll try to use mercy as a justification.
I’m forgiven, so it must be OK.
God is merciful so I don’t have to change.
Many Christians try to drag mercy into the pre-clearance business. And the results of that range from the misaligned virtue of the just war theory to the appallingly evil manifest destiny.
But mercy comes after the sin as a profound unearned and undeserved generosity.
While justification is busy giving us pre-clearance to avoid the emotional and spiritual ticket line, mercy comes long after the agony has begun. It soothes the pain we are trying to avoid.
The Christian ethic is not built around avoiding pain. In fact, avoiding pain is often the source of our greatest sin. It’s built around being merciful to those in pain.