Medicine of Mercy
The Medicine of Mercy
When the Pharisees grumble that Jesus is eating with sinners, he answers them with a diagnosis: “It is not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick” (v. 12). And then, as the Physician, he writes the prescription: “Go and learn what this means — I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (v. 13). The medicine he prescribes for a sick and dying world is mercy. So let us go and learn what that means.
We tend to think of mercy only as restraint — a judge withholding the punishment we deserve. And it is that. But mercy is more than the withholding of consequences; it is also a release into life. It is medicine for both soul and body. Mercy is the package that delivers grace, healing, and life all at once. It is the remedy that calls out, cleans up, and comes to those who are sick. Watch the Great Physician dispense it in our gospel lesson.
Calls Out — Matthew (vv. 9–10). Matthew sits at his tax booth, his life bent toward destruction — a worldly life, a love of money, a heart fixed on the wrong desires. There is nothing in that road but death. And mercifully, Christ calls him out of it. “Follow me,” he says, and Matthew rises and leaves it all behind, trading a life that consumed others for a life that gives life to others. There are only two ways to live: the way of the world or the way of Christ. One leads to death, the other to life. Jesus offers mercy, and Matthew’s life is saved.
Cleans Up — the Hemorrhaging Woman (vv. 20–22). Life is in the blood (Lev. 17:14; Deut. 12:23), and for twelve years this woman has been losing hers. No doctor can cure her; the world has nothing left to offer. So in faith she reaches for Jesus, to stop her life from flowing out of her. And his medicine of mercy answers — the fountain is stopped, the bleeding healed, and her life is no longer poured out on the ground but built up in him. Her faith in his medicine saves her life.
Comes To — the Ruler’s Daughter (vv. 18, 23–25). A ruler’s daughter is dead. She has no life in her. She cannot answer a call, and she cannot summon the faith to be healed. She needs someone to intercede. And it is the ruler’s faith — demonstrated in his worship of Jesus — that brings the Physician to her bedside, where he takes her by the hand and raises her from the dead. Here we learn that Jesus does not only dispense his mercy to those who come to him by faith; he will also come to those we carry to him in faith, to bring them from death to life. Because of his great mercy, even the dead can be made to live again.
Ask Your Doctor if the Medicine of Mercy Is Right for You
Jesus wants us to learn what it means that he desires mercy and not sacrifice, and Matthew sets the lesson before us in three doses. Those who are destroying their lives by clinging to the world need the medicine that calls them out into a fruitful life. Those who are losing their life and seeking Jesus will receive the medicine that cleans up the disease draining the life from them. And those who have no life at all can be given life, when we worship Jesus and ask him to bring his mercy to the ones we love who are dead and need life.
So we learn that mercy is the greater prescription for our lives than any sacrifice we could offer. It is not that sacrifice is needless — it is that what God gives us is greater than what we give him. So ask the Great Physician: is mercy what I need to bring order, healing, and life to me?
And then pray the prayer that the Church has always called the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” A spoonful of Christ’s mercy does wonders for body, life, and soul. Will you seek the Doctor while he may be found? Will you go to him — for yourself and for others — so that the one solution we all need can be taken in and begin its work in us?
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.”
Peace be with you,
Pastor Bruce
