Gentle and Lowly, Chapter 19 - “Rich in Mercy”

This reflection is by Visio Dei pastor Tony Boes.

“How could God exist in a world with so much suffering?”

This question, in one form or another, is asked by nearly every person at some point in their life. It’s not limited to atheists or agnostics. Rather, most Christians will wrestle with it as they mature in the Faith.

It’s not hard to understand why it is so compelling. Christians speak of God as loving, merciful, and gracious. Yet when we witness the violence of natural disasters, the devastation of war, or the suffering of the terminally ill, the question emerges: “Where is God’s mercy now?”

In chapter 19 of Gentle and Lowly, we read about God’s mercy. But the mercy we read of is not rationed out occasionally. Rather it is described as rich. Drawing from Ephesians 2:1-8, God’s love is presented as lavish, plentiful, and powerful. God’s mercy takes dead, distant, and rebellious people and makes them alive, bringing them into the inner courts of the King.

When held up to the details of our lives, this description of God's mercy often produces dissonance. Suffering is not the exclusive experience of those who are far from God—it is common to all people. Indeed, the point of Ephesians 2 is that there are no good people for God to shower mercy upon—all are far from him. God’s mercy is described as rich because of the unlikely nature of its arrival.

But the mercy we receive is not given in the form that we naturally desire. We want to avoid suffering altogether. We want our circumstances to change, for bad things not to happen at all. But the pain we face is not arbitrary. It is the result of the corruption and bondage to sin that rises through people and spreads into the cosmos, affecting all things. Natural disasters, war, and illness are all connected to the reality of sin and its effects on the world. God would not be merciful to alleviate the pain of these things without dealing with their root cause. He is not a doctor who would administer morphine without treating the wound.

So, what does his mercy look like? How does he deal with suffering? I’ll quote what I think is the key passage from this chapter of Gentle and Lowly below:

Perhaps you carry a pain that will never heal till you are dead. If my life is any evidence of the mercy of God in Christ, you might think, I’m not impressed.

To you I say, the evidence of Christ’s mercy toward you is not your life. The evidence of his mercy toward you is his—mistreated, misunderstood, betrayed, abandoned. Eternally. In your place.

If God sent his own Son to walk through the valley of condemnation, rejection, and hell, you can trust him as you walk through your own valleys on your way to heaven.

God’s mercy is not applied from the distance of heaven. Rather, God has shown his mercy by entering into our suffering and taking it upon himself. He took flesh upon himself, walked with us on this cursed earth, and experienced death more profound and dark than any have ever faced. In doing this, the Bible teaches us that he defeated sin and death—the root cause of all suffering.

God is not standing by, watching the world suffer. In his rich mercy, he is redeeming and transforming the world. In the end, all things will be made new. Suffering, and the sin that causes it, will be a memory. His people will find everlasting joy. Therichness of his mercy will be apparent and deeply felt by every weary soul.