Following the Light, Being the Light

Mercy is compassion in action. As discussed in yesterday’s meditation, Jesus taught us to find him in merciful encounters. In doing so, he echoes the biblical sense of justice.

American iconography anthropomorphizes justice as a blindfolded woman holding a scale. We conceive of justice as no respecter of individuality where fairness is the bottom line. We deem mercy another matter altogether.

Biblical justice takes fairness into account, but fairness is not the bottom line. God, who wears no blindfold, insists on mercy in justice. The bottom line is a social order in which the hungry, thirsty, alien, vulnerable, sick, and imprisoned receive the care they need. Justice as fairness alone blindfolds us to human need. Justice infused with mercy shines light in the darkness, revealing the God who sees so attentively that no sparrow flies from divine care.

Today’s reading beseeches God’s justice for the king: to judge ”people with righteousness, and [the] poor with justice.” Specifically, the just king would ”defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.”

In harmony with the prophets (see Isaiah 60:1-6), this justice beckons other kings to come, pay tribute, and bow down to the king who lights up the night with the glory of God. This king overwhelms them not with arms but with care and protection for “the weak and needy,” for “precious is their blood in his sight.”

This may seem idealistic and naïve. On the individual level, a life lived in kindness and mercy may work out, but to expect our leaders and our society to put mercy before fairness and to enact kindness before force may seem far-fetched. Yet, such are the ways of Christ. Such is the vocation to which God calls God’s people. Such is the light in the darkness.