He was known in his day as Mr. Hockey. Besides Wayne Gretsky, arguably the greatest player in the history of the game - Gordy Howe. An adept goal scorer, set many records, with a longevity that defies the imagination.
        Besides all these feats, there was something else Howe was known for - his elbows. Somehow they always managed to rise to the surface, so to speak. If you ended up along the boards or in the corner with Howe, you could count on some intimate time with those famous elbows. And they worked - gained him an enormous amount of respect as Howe elbowed his way to the front of the hockey lineup.

Elbows -
        You may well have encountered a few of your own..... or used them:
        Perhaps in a crowded store, trying to get to that limited quantity special.
        Perhaps trying to get a spot on the bus.
        Or trying to be the one noticed for the promotion.
        Or in the way that classmates get talked about behind their back.

Look around and it’s not hard to see them getting thrown every day.
Carry any elbowing bruises?

What I’m saying is no surprise to you, I’m sure.
That’s just the way life is -
        - if you don’t blow your own horn nobody else will.
        - look out after #1.
        - it’s competitive out there, you or them

Perhaps, then, it seems rather trite and quaint, or maybe even downright foolish to hear these words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount -
        "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." (v.7).

Blessings are found not by having sharp elbows and heavy feet as you shove and stomp your way to the front of the line.
        Blessings are found..... by showing mercy.

        Mercy - What precisely is Jesus referring to? And how does our showing mercy affect our receiving mercy?

Blessed are the merciful....
        Let’s spend a few minutes describing it, and then figuring out how it works.

        Beginning by squashing any idea that being merciful is to be morally flabby, easy-going, letting everything happen everywhere to everyone.
        Being merciful is not living without boundaries – letting everyone walk where they will.... including over you. Saying, "Oh, its all right. They can do whatever brings them happiness. Let's give them a break."

        How do I know that this doesn't qualify as mercy? Simply because the term used here for "mercy" is applied elsewhere in the Bible to God himself.
        Now God is merciful, but he is also described in the Bible as righteous, holy, just - all terms that demand that law and the created order be upheld.
        Therefore, any understanding of "mercy" that seeks to do an end run around truth and law, that lets whatever might be just be, simply for the sake of giving someone "a break," is not mercy at all.

        So what then is mercy? Think of mercy in comparison to pity. Pity is to see people in a broken, miserable situation and to feel badly for them, to cringe at their suffering, to feel pain in your heart at their agony.
        Mercy happens when that pity, that sense of pain at seeing misery in someone's life -- when pity is moved to action.
        Mercy is when I am pained at someone's dilemma and reach out a hand to lift them up. It is pity put into action.

I have pity on the motorist stranded in the ditch in a winter storm. I show mercy when I offer assistance, the warmth of my car and a ride to the gas station or phone call to the tow truck.

Think of the parable of the Good Samaritan. Three main characters.
        Now while we are not told, it may very well have been the case that all three felt pity inside for the waylaid traveler. How could you not?
        But the priest and the Levite – what was their response?
        They passed the hapless man by.... for whatever reason:
                fear of being waylaid themselves?
                uncertainty of how to help?
                afraid they would miss their important appointment?
                can't stand the sight of blood?

        We don't know and it doesn't much matter. But whatever the case, and whatever pity they may have felt within their hearts, that's all it was
                -- pity.
 

        Then along comes the Samaritan fellow. Who manages to contain his nausea at the sight of a battered body, pushes back the concern over the missed appointment and the fear of being attacked himself and tries to help -- even if it is only a little.
        His pity for the man puts his hand and feet into motion.
        And when it does, pity becomes mercy.

There’s another biblical example – far greater, yet, than this one -
        I think of God himself, and the tremendous mercy he showed in sending his One and Only Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to rescue us from slavery to sin.
        He saw us in our predicament. He saw our lawlessness, our rebellion against him, our separation from heaven, our horrible eternal destiny.
                He saw that and pitied us.
                        More than that, he was moved in his pity to take action.
                        He was merciful!

In his mercy he dealt in a complete way with the legal sentence that hung over our heads -- the sentence of eternal death. He didn't just overlook it; sweep it under the carpet.
        No.
God remains just and righteous. Our violations of God's eternal laws needed to be properly dealt with. And they were.
        Mercy caused God to act in the greatest of ways.
        Mercy caused Jesus Christ to lay aside his glory, come to earth as a man, suffering and dying for us so that we might be freed from our misery and horrible eternal destiny, and be given the glory of membership in the family of God!

That is mercy.
Can you see it?
Understand it?

Moving beyond understanding it, blessed are those who show such mercy, for they will also receive it.

Two things we have to consider here.

First is a very common principle - the old "what goes round, comes round" rule of life. Which is true, whether we like to admit it or not.
        Oh, I know. We tend to be people who focus on the negative examples, who somehow gravitate towards the exceptions.
        "Why I know someone in town here who tried to help a motorist in distress. They ended up getting mugged. See if you ever catch me helping someone."
        Seems likely to me that is precisely the sort of thinking that would keep a Priest and a Levite truckin' right past an injured man. "It's just a setup."

        Or this one -- "Why I know someone who went to the local foodbank, got two big bags of groceries, saving some cash and went out to purchase beer and cigarettes. Last time I ever give some money or canned goods to a food drive."

        The UN soldiers shot in Bosnia trying to bring peace and an semblance of order to that war-torn land.

        Look long enough and you can find negative fallout from just about any type of merciful act.
        But finally -- don't expect to have a lot of mercy end up on your doorstep if you are someone who refuses to translate any felt pity into action, or if you are someone who smothers pity inside. That's just the way life works in God's creation.

It’s one part of that very basic and very true dynamic which Christ articulated:
        "Give, and it will be given to you."
                Real stuff – not just some pie in the sky spiritual nicety.

        But now the second point about merciful people receiving mercy. It is a deeply spiritual point, one that runs to the very heart of our salvation.
        For that we need to read one more passage of scripture:

The key verse for our consideration is v.33:
        "Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?"
        What Jesus is teaching here is that mercy is very clearly tied to forgiveness. The master showed mercy on his servant. He took pity on the man's condition of being unable to pay back the debt, and translating that pity into action by forgiving the debt.
        That master is God. He has shown great mercy in forgiving us our great debt of sin, our violations against him.
        The servant, however, had no pity on the one who owed money to him. And he showed no compassion, no saving or healing action -- no mercy. In the end, there was no mercy shown to him either. He landed in jail to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed.

        Forgiveness.... mercy.
        If we show it to others, it will be shown to us.
        If we refuse to show it, God will not show it to us.

        Please understand that this does NOT mean that our act of forgiving will lead to the consequence of God doing the act of forgiving us.
        We don’t earn our forgiveness by forgiving others.

Rather -
        If we live a pattern of withholding mercy from others, it’s like rubbing callouses on our soul and heart. We become hard, and spiritually insensitive. We become unable to resonate with the joyful tune of salvation.
        Cutting off mercy from the lives of others is like cutting off the power cord of God’s grace into our lives.
        When we withhold mercy it plugs the flow of God’s refreshing river of salvation. What happens to a pool of water that does not flow? It becomes stagnant, right? God’s grace, says John 7, is meant to be a river in our life. Not a still pool. No reservoir that we hoard for ourselves. We receive it in order that we may pass it on to others.
        Only when we pass it on does it remain vital and alive within us, fresh and real.

When we withhold mercy and forgiveness from others it is not that God is cutting us off from the tree of life. It is that WE are doing the cutting.... while we’re sitting on the branch!
 

Blessed are the merciful.....
        .....for they shall receive mercy.

My friends -
        What we don’t have here is some sort of New Testament commandment.
        It’s not edict that demands obedience from us.
        Instead - Jesus offers it to us as a blessing statement of hope; it is a gateway to joy and peace-filled living. It is a divine invitation for us to happiness.

You won’t find this kind of invitation elsewhere.
Certainly not in the hard-driving, elbow to the head environment that so many of us find ourselves in on a daily basis.

And -
        - like any invitation -
                you can choose to pick it up...... or drop it.

Blessed are those who recognize it.
And live it.
For Jesus’ sake.