Hallelujah!
You Can Face Your Flaws!
Too scared and embarrassed to get real?
When people say, "How are you?" we simply say, "Fine, how are you?" glossing over our whole world of hurt.
This routine social greeting has a dark side. It reveals that deep in our hearts we do not believe that most people are merciful. We believe they do not want to know much about how we really feel, and if we tell them much about who we really are, they will reject us, gossip about us, and use our weaknesses against us.
Even in our own heads, we play games to avoid being honest with ourselves. For example, we blame others for problems we know we helped cause; we obsess over work or a hobby so we have no time left to face our failures; or we take drugs or alcohol as if numbness is the best "treatment" for our life of pain. We can't or won't get real about flaws that are too painful to face.
If you have been living with that inability to admit the truth to yourself and to reveal it to others, you can kiss that problem goodbye during Mercy Season.
As you get into the idea of Mercy Season, you gradually realize where and how you fit into the story of God's mercy campaign, and a fantastic thought dawns on you--God is in the mercy business, and so are you! This drastically reduces your fear of getting real about your flaws.
CAUTION: Don't fall for this common misinterpretation of mercy: "God is merciful, kind, and loving. He will let me off, like a grandfather overlooking many failings of his grandkids." If you believe this twisted definition, you will never get real about your failings because you think God will let you off the hook.
Unfortunately the cross often gets misinterpreted as the correction to that shallow view of God's mercy. We think of it this way: "God didn't just overlook our sin and arbitrarily cancel our debt because he is kind. That would be unjust. To maintain his justice and show his mercy at the same time, He sent his son Jesus to pay for our sin on the cross."
That is true as far as it goes, but it leads to a false sense of security when we treat "accepting Christ's sacrifice" as a contract and an entitlement to God's mercy. God's mercy is definitely not a formal contract but a personal promise. Contracts give impersonal leverage; personal promises give personal connection.
The Messiah's personal promise is that if you open up to him, he will not use your flaws and failures against you. Instead he will include you in his movement (his mercy campaign team) and put his Spirit into you as a member. The other campaign team members will not shame you either, and you will not shame them. It's like you are living in a shame-free zone.
The only shameful thing to watch out for is the temptation to shame others, whether they are team members or outsiders. Using people's flaws against them is disgraceful because it goes against the main goals of Jesus's campaign--connect, heal, bless. The campaign will never get anywhere if team members shame others. Jesus, the Campaign Director, forbids it!
Feed my sheep (John 21.15-17)
Jesus shows us exactly how his mercy works when he talks to Peter after the resurrection. Instead of sticking up for Jesus at his trial, Peter swore he never met him in order to save his own skin. When Jesus earlier predicted this, Peter insisted he would never deny Jesus, but when the time came, he caved in anyway.
Jesus did not bring Peter's failure up at all when he first appeared to the disciples after his resurrection. Days or perhaps weeks went by, and Peter must have been dreading the moment when Jesus would broach the subject. Every morning the crowing of roosters reminded Peter of his guilt, rubbing salt into the wound of his soul.
Finally Jesus said something, but it wasn't anything Peter expected, such as, "Peter, how could you?" or "What do you have to say for yourself?" or "Your penance is 40 days of fasting" or "You know, you would be headed for hell if my blood had not paid for your failure," or "You may still follow me, but a disgrace like you can never be a leader again," or "You can go back to fishing now."
Jesus did not bring up the past. Instead, he asked: "Peter, do you love me?" Peter answered, "Of course!" And Jesus didn't retort, "Then why didn't you act like it?"
Jesus asked him the same question three times, and left Peter to figure out that this corresponded to his three denials. Jesus never connected those dots for him.
Each time Peter answered, "Of course," Jesus said again, "Feed my sheep," which meant, "I have a role for you in my mercy campaign. Build up the team."
No conditions. No theological explanations. Just, "Are you with me now or not? If so, let's go."
This does not mean that Peter's sin was not serious, his guilt was not heavy, or that the cross was not essential. It means that Jesus's way of breaking the power of past sin was to be mercifully quiet about past failures, to (re)connect people to himself, and to build momentum for his campaign of mercy.
Peter, the worst failure among the disciples except for Judas, became the top leader of the campaign, the spokesperson on Pentecost Day when the Holy Spirit arrived. Peter had experienced mercy, and he knew what Jesus could do with a failure.
Peter did not spend the rest of his life apologizing for his cowardly failure on that awful night when Jesus was arrested. He "faced his failures" by realizing that Jesus did not want him to dwell on them. He wanted Peter to focus on more important things in the present and the future.
Peter moved on because Jesus moved on. Peter saw himself in Christ, moving along with Christ to connect, heal, and bless the world. Hallelujah!