Happy are the Merciful

“Sweep the leg!”

If you know, you know! This line comes from one of the most iconic moments in sports history. It’s the classic karate match between Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence.

After multiple run-ins with the bad boys of Cobra Kai, Mr. Miyagi and Daniel visit the dojo. As they enter the facility they hear the rhetoric of their sensei, John Kreese, “We do not train to be merciful here! Mercy is for the weak!”

Mr. Miyagi makes a request that Kreese’s students stop bullying Daniel, then he spends the next several weeks training Daniel for the All Valley Karate Tournament with non-typical exercises to learn self-defense. “Wax on, wax off. Right the circle, left the circle. Paint the fence.”

These moments of training culminate at the tournament with him using those self-defense skills and some tactical offensive striking to compete and make it to the championship match. A Cobra Kai fighter attempts to eliminate Daniel’s participation in the championship match by attacking his leg. After a moment of resurgence from the training room, Daniel returns for the championship match, ultimately winning the title with “the Crane.”

The underdog wins. The crowd celebrates. Cobra Kai crumbles. But this line, ‘We do not train to be merciful here. Mercy is for the weak,’ that has me thinking. While most people may not say it, many have a tendency to embrace it.

According to the Oxford dictionary, mercy is “showing compassion or forgiveness when it is within one’s power to punish or harm.” Or as many Christians like to say, mercy is “not getting what you deserve.”

If you had to choose between getting what’s deserved or withholding what is owed, which would you choose? Do you want justice or mercy? I think for many of us, our answer to that question depends largely on who’s guilty as charged. Generally, we want justice served on others’ evil deeds but mercy given toward our own.

What did Jesus say about mercy? He said, “happy are people who show mercy because they will receive mercy.” Did He say we would be happy to withhold the due consequences of someone’s offense? That forgiveness and compassion would be a better response than punishment or harm for what they’ve done?

Maybe the Christian ethic of mercy sounds good, in theory. But practically, it doesn’t bode well for our emotions. When there’s an offense that disrupts the harmony we share with others there becomes an imbalance of unity. And we often struggle with how to respond to relational dysfunction.

The previous words of Jesus dealt with our vertical relationship with the Father; we’re broken because of sin, we grieve over our sin, we’re humbled by His redemption, and we are nourished by His sanctifying truth in our lives. But this concept of mercy now introduces the notion of how our horizontal relationships with others must function in light of the mercy that’s been shown to us.

Why is showing mercy so difficult? The relational wounds we experience from others’ actions are real. Retribution and revenge are genuine responses that we may consider for their misconduct, and it’s easy to begin contemplating how to even the score with verbal jabs and innuendos of our own.

Not only are Christ’s words to show mercy difficult because of a natural inclination to repay evil with like kind, but this new attitude associated with compassion and forgiveness appears to be such a ‘weak’ response. Showing mercy seems to lack worldly wisdom and displays major vulnerability.

Mercy identifies the moment of fault without requiring payment from the offender for what’s been done. To be sure, we’re not excusing the offense. But the cost is absorbed in some other way apart from requiring it from the one who hurt us. And we better understand how the payment for the penalty of sin is covered through the redemptive work of Jesus.

God’s intent from the beginning has been to restore the relationship between Himself and His people. As a holy God, He required payment for the sinful deeds of men. Rather than requiring His people to pay for the consequences of their sin, in an act of mercy, the wrath of God was appeased by the death of His Son. Therefore, showing mercy does require a sacrifice by one party for the sake of restoring the relationship back to its original design.

What is the advantage of showing mercy? Jesus said, “happy are people who show mercy because they will receive mercy,” but I would surmise that we have received God’s mercy already. Showing mercy to others becomes a visible expression that we have come to know and understand the mercy of God on such a grander scale. Showing mercy becomes an act of obedience that pleases the heart of the Father.

Life will always consist of moments that have the potential to fracture and harm our relationships. But choosing mercy provides two major outcomes: (1) it continues to manifest the Spirit’s transforming work in our lives to make us more like Jesus and (2) gives the world a glimpse into the power of God to redeem and restore what has been broken and lost.

Do you want to be happy? Then release yourself from the prison of holding grudges, seeking retribution, harboring resentment, and becoming bitter by others’ actions. Rather, release them from believing they still owe you for what they’ve done. Show mercy! No it’s not easy. No it doesn’t seem fair. But it frees us. It liberates us. It brings us joy as we please the heart of God.