Lord, have mercy

I never gave much thought to the mercy of God until this past weekend. “Lord, have mercy” has long been an expression of exasperation (as in, “Lord have mercy! What were you thinking?”) rather than a prayer. My first exposure to this was in sixth grade, when we moved to Columbus, Mississippi–my family’s first time in the South. My teacher that year–I can’t remember her name, but I clearly remember her face, her blue hair, and her rather unpleasant disposition–was a good Southern woman, and she used to exclaim, “Laaaw-zay mer-say may!” (translation: Lordy, mercy me!) when she was frustrated. Later, in high school, Sunday school teacher Dave Krebs suggested to us boys that “mercy” was a good word to say instead of a profanity. Not a bad idea, I suppose. The other place that I encountered “mercy” was in games of strength: you extend your arms upward, interlock fingers with the other guy, and try to push him down to his knees, making him cry for mercy.

The upshot of this, particularly using mercy as an exclamation, is that the word was emptied of meaning for me. I knew that it was a theologically important concept, as well as a potentially troubling one, linked as it always was to God’s sovereignty. God said to Moses, “I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy,” and I always wondered how He decided. Since I usually ended up scared when I pondered this, I decided not to think about it at all. So “mercy” didn’t enter much into my understanding of God or into my prayers.

I read somewhere last year that Orthodox Christians regularly pray “The Jesus Prayer”: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. I remember thinking at the time that “have mercy on me” was probably not the one thing I would choose to pray repeatedly, but I didn’t pursue it and just made a mental note of the fact.

Apparently it’s time for me to pursue it. As I noted about a week ago, the repetition of Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. in my use of The Little Book of Hours helped slow me down. This past weekend, I read Frederica Mathewes-Green’s The Illumined Heart, a short but powerful book that applies the wisdom of early Christians to the process of being changed by God. Mathewes-Green devotes an entire chapter to the Jesus Prayer, describing its centrality to Orthodox practice. She explains, “The words of this prayer distill the faith of the early church.”

First, it calls on the name of Jesus: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God. Mathewes-Green writes,

To call upon the name of Jesus meant to call on his whole person as revealed in glory; it meant to own him as Lord and Christ. Thus the first part of this prayer attributes titles of honor to the one on whom we call, and proclaims that we take him as Lord. It is a profession of faith.

That makes sense, and I like it. I’ve recognized recently that I have a highly developed sense of Jesus as friend (“What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and “I Am a Friend of God” come to mind here), but not much sense of Jesus as Lord. This lack is part of what has drawn my attention to Catholicism in the last year or so; Roman Catholics seem to do a really good job of presenting God and Jesus as objects of reverence and awe. Mathewes-Green ends her chapter with a quote from St. Theophan:

“Beware lest in ceaselessly remembering God you forget also to kindle fear, and awe, and the desire to fall down as dust before the face of God.… Frequent recollection of God without reverence blunts the feeling of the fear of God and thereby deprives us of its saving influence.”

Praying Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God serves as a powerful reminder that Jesus is more than friend; He is Master, Savior, Anointed One.

But what about the mercy part? I’ll take that up tomorrow next time.

Tagged as: Christ, Frederica Mathewes Green, Jesus, Jesus Prayer, Lord, mercy, Orthodox, prayer