MERCY AND JUSTICE
Psalm 28
“To you, Lord, I call; you are my Rock, do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who go down to the pit. Hear my cry for mercy as I call to you for help, as I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place.”
The Christian Faith has a long history believing that in God’s sight no one is to be deprived of access to God’s mercy. In fact we revel in stories of Christians forgiving those who have done tremendous harm to them and to their loved ones.
This love for mercy and the desire to extend mercy even to those who have done us harm repeatedly come from our gratitude towards God who has been gracious and merciful towards us.
However, our love for mercy must not overcome our sense of justice. God is just and the world he seeks to redeem will be a world where the righteous thrive and the wicked are punished. In this psalm David reminds himself of where he stands: evil must be punished and laid low.
“Repay them for their deeds and for their evil work; repay them for what their hands have done and bring back on them what they deserve.”
The wicked, rightly, deserve to come under the justice of God. We do well to pray with David that God lets “justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”
Is David then being hypocritical when he turns to God seeking mercy for himself? What exactly is David seeking in this psalm?
“To you, Lord, I call; you are my Rock, do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who go down to the pit.”
David seeks for mercy to save him from becoming one of the wicked.
As with all mankind, David is sinful and without mercy David too will be swept away in his sin. However, he loves God and desires to stand with him. Notice what he says about the wicked:
“Because they have no regard for the deeds of the Lord and what his hands have done, he will tear them down and never build them up again.”
Mercy is not for the wicked to get away with sin. It is for those who earnestly seek to escape the cold grip of sin on their heart. The wicked, rightly, deserve to come under the justice of God. But there are those who stand on the side of God and abhor evil, even the evil in their own heart.
God is merciful. Mercy is extended not only to those who accidentally sin, or are forced by circumstances to transgress, but also to those who have fallen into the pit of darkness. Mercy is available to us who cry to God, not merely to save us from the consequence of our sin, but from sin itself.
May we never let our sin defeat us into thinking that God can never rescue us from the darkness in us, but turn to him, trusting in the depth of his capacity for mercy.
“Praise be to the Lord, for he has heard my cry for mercy. The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.”