Finding True Certainty

 

April 20, 2025 – Easter Day

Acts 10:34-43; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26; John 20:1-18

© 2025 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon will be available here. Video can be seen here.

Anyone have a picnic planned for this afternoon? Anyone buy a new outfit you were hoping to show off? Anyone hide Easter eggs all over your yard so your children or grandchildren could find them in their raincoats and galoshes? This isn’t the beautiful, sunny, picturesque celebration we had in mind, but Christ is still risen all the same. Alleluia!

Sometimes our plans don’t work out, but that doesn’t stop us from trying. Anyone here married to a planner? I’m talking about the kind of planner who has backup plans to backup plans—the sort who makes you leave for the airport four hours before your flight just in case a herd of elk decide to block the interstate. Anyone live with one of those? 

If so, these last few months haven’t been easy, have they? All of us are having to plan for contingencies we never dreamt were possible. And bad weather is only the start. How do you plan for retirement if you don’t know whether there will even be a stock market in five years? And what a luxury it is to even contemplate retirement! What’s it like to plan a wedding when you aren’t completely sure that your marriage will be legal by the time the date rolls around? What it’s like to plan to have children when you aren’t sure you would be able to get the life-saving treatment you need should that unlikely possibility come to pass? What’s it like to go shopping for a family dinner when you can’t be sure that your undocumented spouse will even come home from work tonight? In a world of deep uncertainty, we need the confidence of Easter.

Two summers ago, I decided it would be a good idea for our family to have an emergency preparedness kit. I bought a hand-cranked weather radio and phone charger. I bought some extra flashlights, toothbrushes, and toothpaste. I bought some peanut butter and canned chicken and other shelf-stable foods. I bought a can opener. I bought a little fishing tackle box that I could put some medications in. I bought some large jugs of water. And I put it all in a waterproof plastic bin, which I slid into the back of my closet. I was so proud of myself. We were ready.

A few months ago, I decided I needed to update its contents and switch out the shelf-stable items and medication for newer supplies. When I opened the bin, however, I discovered that everything inside was submerged in a pool of water. The seams on the water jugs had ruptured, and everything that was supposed to keep our family safe in the unlikely event of an emergency was immersed in the gross, rusty waters of my own miniature flood. The irony is not lost on me that my efforts to prepare for a disaster became their own disaster.

Having an emergency preparedness kit is a good idea, but pretending that it is an infallible means of protection only leads to disappointment. Striking the right balance between planning for the future and setting yourself up for frustration depends upon your ability to accept that, while you can anticipate some of what the future holds, there is no amount of planning that can make you immune from what life will bring. Ironically, the more you try to hold on to the myth of unassailable peace and security the more quickly those dreams slip through your fingers. Letting go of that need for certainty is the only way we can find certainty. That may sound like bad news, but I assure you that it isn’t. It’s how the true hope of Easter becomes manifest in us.

After Peter and the other disciple had gone into the tomb, seen the linen wrappings lying where the body of Jesus had been, and gone back to their homes, Mary Magdalene stood outside and wept. “Woman, why are you weeping?” the angels in white asked her. “They have taken away my Lord,” she said, “and I do not know where they have laid him.” Into that moment of paralyzing grief, Jesus revealed himself to her. “Mary,” he said tenderly. “Rabbouni,” she replied, overcome with joy. Her first instinct was to wrap her arms around Jesus and never let him go, but, before she could even touch him, Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ And Mary went with joy to tell them.

The instinct to seek the warm and loving embrace of our savior is a good and holy one, but all too easily our desire to be close to Jesus gets wrapped up in a different sort of hope—one that comes not from God but from the idol of security that put in God’s place. In uncertain times, we are desperate for certainty, and, often without even realizing it, we cling to Christ’s victory over sin and death as if it were a shield for the faithful in this life. When that sort of claim is made by others, it’s easy for us to recognize it as hollow. The false lure of the prosperity gospel or Christian nationalism is easy for us to spot. But, when it’s our retirement account, our pathology report, or our research grant that we’re worried about, it’s a lot harder to avoid the theological trap of thinking that, if God really were up there and if he really did raise Jesus from the dead, why doesn’t he step in and help me now?

The miracle of Easter isn’t about providing certainty in this life. It’s about the certainty Christ gives us for the life to come. As Saint Paul wrote in his First Letter to the Corinthians, “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” If the victory of Jesus is only supposed to make this life—life in this broken and fallen world—easier, then we are the butt of a terrible two-thousand-year-old joke.

Jesus didn’t die on the cross and be raised on the third day to make this life easy. He died to carry us safely from this life into the next, and that unassailable truth has the power to shield us, not from hardship and suffering, but from the damning conclusion that the hardship and suffering we endure in this life will have the final word. They won’t! They can’t! Because Christ has defeated them once and for all. But that’s a victory we cling to not with our hands but only with our hearts.

“Do not hold on to me,” Jesus says to Mary Magdalene, “because I have not yet ascended to the Father.” The Jesus we hold on to is the one who has already gone into heaven to prepare a place for us. That part of us which is already linked to him—already united to the risen and ascended Jesus—clings to him even now in heaven. Even though, for now, the promise of salvation is only partially realized, its certainty is enough to sustain us when we encounter suffering in this life. How we face the challenges and uncertainties ahead of us is completely transformed by our faith in the one who was raised from the dead. We must not allow our hope in the resurrection to be diminished by pretending that it is supposed to make this life easy. But we can allow our confidence in what lies ahead to bring hope and light and life even to the hardest parts of our lives.

Sometimes the hardest part of being a Christian is remembering that the stronger our faith becomes the harder our lives on the earth become, too. That’s because, when that part of you that already dwells securely in the heart of the risen Jesus grows, your willingness to live not for this life but for the life to come grows as well. Those of us who belong to one who was raised from the dead and who now lives and reigns from heaven above are given courage and strength to let go of our need for security and certainty in this life. We cling, instead, to the promise of the new life that awaits us. We hold on to the one who is risen and who has ascended into heaven, Jesus Christ, to whom and with whom we belong for ever and ever. Amen.

Emptiness, Remembrance, Faith, Salvation

 

April 19, 2025 – The Easter Vigil, Year C

Romans 6:3-11; Luke 24:1-12

© 2025 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video can be seen here.

Tonight is the night when death becomes life, when darkness gives way to new light, when suffering is transformed into glory. But where is Jesus? Every gospel writer recalls for us the moment when the empty tomb was discovered, and all of them have their own particular way of telling this sacred story. Luke’s version, which we hear tonight, includes many of the same details as the other three—the early-morning setting, the stone having already been rolled away, the heavenly figures waiting nearby, and the women—always the women—who were the first to find it—but Luke is the only one who gives us a version that is this elaborate without including Jesus. 

Where is Jesus? “He is not here,” the men in dazzling clothes said to the women, “but has risen.” Why do you look for the living among the dead? The question implies a lack of understanding on the part of the women—as if they were confused about a detail that should be obvious to them. If only Jesus were here to explain it to them. If only Jesus were here to show us how to believe.

But Jesus doesn’t show up, at least not yet. Instead, the angelic figures say to the women, “Remember.” “Remember, they said, “how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” These women stood at the place where death had been defeated once and for all—the launching pad from which a categorically new moment in the story of salvation was springing forth—yet the truth of what God had done could only be found by going back—back into their memories, where they could inhabit that transformation for themselves. Only when we remember—only when we return to dwell in that place where our own emptiness is met by the fullness of God’s love—can the truth of the resurrection take hold in our lives.

Of course that truth was declared first to the women. Because of their status in that society, which is to say because they occupied a position of non-privilege, they were able to see the empty tomb and find within its absence the power of the resurrection. Although all four gospel writers remember that the women were the first to discover it, Luke is the only one who allows that discovery to be for them and them alone. In the other three, the women were told to go and share that good news with the male disciples. But not in Luke. Instead, Luke knows what will happen when the women go and tell the eleven all that had happened: their words were dismissed as an idle tale.

The men would not receive their testimony. The men did not believe them. The men did not even bother to go and see it for themselves, except for Peter. Something within Peter was different. Leaving the ten behind, he went to look into the tomb for himself, and, although he did not remember what the women disciples had remembered, he was amazed at what he saw, and amazement is a first step toward faith.

Eight times in Luke’s gospel account someone is said to remember something. Eight different times remembrance plays a role in the unfolding story of salvation. And, in all eight, that act of remembering takes place within a context of loss, weakness, vulnerability, or rejection: Mary’s Magnificat, Zechariah’s Benedictus, Abraham’s convicting words to the rich man in Jesus’ parable, Jesus’ instructions to his disciples about not looking back in their moment of trial, the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, the request of the penitent thief who hanged on the cross beside Jesus, Peter’s shame when he heard the cock crow, and the women’s moment of realization at the empty tomb. Every time, the act of remembering comes out of a moment of emptiness, and every time that emptiness leads to salvation. 

Peter was the only one of the eleven to go and look in the tomb because he was the only one who remembered his own emptiness—the haunting shame of having denied Jesus. The realization of faith may not have come to him yet, but his amazement was a starting point.

Tonight is the night when death becomes life, when darkness gives way to a new dawn, when suffering is transformed into glory. And where is Jesus? He is found right in the center of that transformation—in the very middle of the hollowed out emptiness that is filled with the promise of new life. Suffering must always precede glory. Struggle always comes before salvation. There is no other way. And we must remember that. And, when we do, we find Jesus.

It is hard for those of us who have it easy to see within the empty tomb something other than an absence. It is hard for those of us who live the good life to hear the women’s report as something other than an idle tale. But the message of the men in dazzling clothes is the same for us as it was for them: we must remember.

Remembering is more than a simple recollection. It is the reconstitution of a moment and the repositioning of ourselves within it, and that requires emptiness. When Jesus taught his disciples that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, be crucified, and on the third day rise again, none of them understood what he said. It was not possible for any of them to see how God’s anointed one, the savior of the world, could die a shameful death. And so, when Jesus did die that shameful death, none of them could put the pieces of their shattered expectations back together again until the women were asked to remember. Their example of remembering is God’s gift to us.

Salvation comes from faith, and faith comes from remembering, and remembering comes from being empty, and being empty is where we find Jesus. The women at the tomb teach us that we must be emptied of our self-sufficiency in order to make room for the risen Lord. That is harder for some of us than it is for others. It feels scary to be asked to give up the security we have established for ourselves. More often, it is taken from us without our choosing. But the good news of Easter is that Jesus is always found in the hollowed-out space that has been made within us. It is within that space that remembrance becomes possible, and it is from remembrance that faith springs forth, and that faith is our salvation—our own place within God’s story of new life.

Commitment To Christ-Like Love

 

April 17, 2025 – Maundy Thursday

Exodus 12:1-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35

© 2025 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video can be seen here.

I mentioned in the announcements on Sunday that I’m always surprised that more people don’t show up to the Maundy Thursday service. It’s such a beautiful, tender, and dramatic way to begin these three holy days, and I’m glad you’re here. But, tonight, I’m also glad that there aren’t more people with us because I want to say something that, if the wrong people heard it, might get me into trouble. Don’t tell anyone, but I don’t really like the invitation we say before coming to Communion: whoever you are and wherever you are on your pilgrimage of faith, you are welcome in this place, and you are welcome at God’s table.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, that hasn’t stopped me from saying it. I remember the search committee asking me about it when they interviewed me for this position. I don’t remember what I told them, but I remember thinking to myself, “Oh boy! That sounds really important, and I guess I’m going to have to find a way to say it.” Later on, early in my time here, I forgot to say those words at one of the Sunday-morning services. It just slipped my mind. Sometimes that happens. But, on the way out of church, a parishioner stopped and asked me about it. “Why didn’t you say the invitation to Communion?” she asked accusingly. “Don’t you believe those words? Have you decided not to say them anymore?”

As a statement of invitation and welcome, those familiar words—whoever you are and wherever you are—are a fundamental expression of the character of this parish. It’s not that character that I have a problem with. In fact, that’s the thing I love most about St. Paul’s. It’s why I accepted the call to serve as your rector. The part that gives me pause is their incompleteness—it’s what we don’t say next. Hospitality and inclusion, regardless of denominational affiliation or doctrinal allegiance, are a hallmark of St. Paul’s and of the wider Episcopal tradition. But this sacramental meal that we share is nothing less than the complete offering of ourselves into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that seems to demand more than a simple word of invitation. 

Every time we receive Holy Communion, we reenact our sacred commitment to Christ’s way of living and loving and dying, which God has shown to be the way of salvation, and that seems like an awfully big ask for a first date. There’s no easy way to say to visitors and newcomers that anyone and everyone is welcome to take Communion in this place as long as they are ready to love other people the way that Jesus loved them, which is to say as long as they are willing to die not only for the people who love them back but even for those who don’t love them at all. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I want to hear that every week, either. But that’s what Jesus says to us tonight.

Do this in remembrance of me. It is an imperative. When Jesus was at the table with his disciples on the night before he died, he took a loaf of bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” After supper, he did the same with the cup of wine, saying, “Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” Saint Paul’s words to the Corinthian church are the earliest written record of Holy Communion. He shows us that Jesus’s followers have been sharing this sacred meal not only as a way of remembering Jesus but also as a way of “proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes.” 

The word translated for us as “proclaiming” literally means “down-declaring,” which carries the same connotation we might use when describing how an authority figure like a parent or a teacher has “laid down the law.” It means to announce something significant and with conviction. When we share Communion, therefore, we are not only recalling in our minds what Jesus did for us, but we are declaring to the world with conviction the centrality of Jesus’s death in our lives.

In the gospel lesson for Maundy Thursday, we hear another imperative that has its roots in the same meal. Interestingly enough, although Holy Communion has always been central to our identity as Christians, the Gospel according to John does not mention it. The other gospel accounts—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—all record Jesus’s command that we are to share the bread and wine—Christ’s body and blood—in remembrance of him. But John recalls another aspect of that Last Supper: the washing of the disciples’ feet. 

As Jesus put a towel around his waist and prepared, like a servant, to wash the disciples’ feet, Peter objected vehemently: “You will never wash my feet!” It is absurd, if you think about it, for the King of kings to stoop down on the floor and wash the feet of his subjects—his followers. Peter wanted no part of it, yet Jesus insisted. This was not merely an act of humility. It was a pattern for us to follow. “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet,” Jesus said, “you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” For us, Jesus provides not only a model of humble service but also of the radical love that undergirds it. That is the new commandment that Jesus has given us—that we love one another just as he has loved us—and we pledge ourselves to that way of love every time we gather at this table.

When the nature of that love becomes clear, the absurdity behind it becomes even more profound. As John’s description of that night shows us, Jesus not only washed the feet of Peter and the rest of the eleven disciples who remained faithful to him, but he also washed the feet of Judas his betrayer. “Not all of you are clean,” Jesus said, but he washed all of their feet. Similarly, in the synoptic gospel tradition, when Jesus gave the blessed bread and wine to his disciples, Judas was still there at the table. “This is my body, which is given for you,” he said even to the one who had betrayed him to death. The death of Jesus, which we proclaim every time we share Holy Communion, was not withheld even from the one who set that death in motion.

What did Judas feel in his heart as he looked down at his teacher, the one he would soon arrange to be arrested, washing his feet? What maddening thoughts must have gone through his mind as he received this gesture of incomprehensible love from the one whose love he would reject? What did Jesus feel in his heart as he knelt down before his betrayer and washed his feet as carefully and lovingly as he washed anyone else’s? What do we feel in our hearts when we realize that Jesus’s offering of himself upon the cross was not given for the sake of our best selves but even for that part of us that is utterly unworthy of his love? What does it feel like to know that we must love others like that?

In one sense, I need to hear those words beckoning me back to the table each time we gather in this place: whoever you are and wherever you are in your pilgrimage of faith, you are welcome in this place, and you are welcome at God’s table. That part of me that struggles to believe that Jesus’s sacrifice—his love—is meant for me yearns to hear those words of welcome. And so I say them each time—not only to you but to my own heart. And yet all of us must also hear the significance of that invitation—that, if we are going to share this sacred meal not only in remembrance of Jesus but as an expression of who we are and who we desire to become, we must make his sacrificial love the defining characteristic of our lives.

This is not a casual encounter. It is not a chance to get acquainted with Jesus and try his love on for size. When you come to that table, you are accepting that the way Jesus loves each one of us must become the way that you love others. And nothing about that is easy. Don’t let our genuine and wide-open invitation obscure the significance of what takes place within us when we partake of Christ’s body and blood.

You don’t need to have everything figured out to come to that table. You don’t need to agree with everything that the church teaches. You don’t need to be perfect. You don’t even need to love others the way the Jesus loved them. But you need to want that. You need to want the love of Jesus to break open your heart until you are able to love all people—even your enemies, even those who betray you—with that same love. Everyone is welcome at that table, including you, and that means that you must welcome anyone who comes with the open arms and open heart of Jesus.

Devoted To Mercy

 

April 6, 2025 – The 5th Sunday in Lent, Year C

Isaiah 43:16-21; Philippians 3:4b-14; John 12:1-8

© 2025 Evan D. Garner

Audio of this sermon can be heard here. Video can be seen here.

In the hallway just past the bookstore, right across from Sara’s office, there is a curious window. It is one of three painted-glass windows that depict different moments from Jesus’ life. In this particular window, the large, central image is of Joseph teaching his young son Jesus how to be a carpenter. But that’s not the curious part. The part that I find fascinating is in the upper left corner, in which there is a small, easily overlooked depiction of Judas.

Not every artist decides to include an image of Judas among the other disciples. Sometimes they leave him out entirely, and other times they go ahead and put in Matthias, who was eventually chosen to take Judas’ place. Each window in the hallway includes four different disciples surrounding the central image. They don’t have labels, so you can only tell who is who is by interpreting the iconography that accompanies each one. 

In Judas’ case, you can see that the halo or nimbus, which surrounds the heads of the other eleven disciples with a golden yellow glow, has faded out completely. There is a sadness in his eyes and slightly downturned mouth. But the most obvious detail that gives Judas away is the artist’s depiction of the money bags. While holding out with his right hand a tray that has two purses on it, Judas the betrayer clutches a third bag close to his chest, partially hidden by his robe.

We can thank the author of the fourth gospel account for that understanding of Judas. John is the only one who mentions that Judas stole money from the common purse. Whoever John was—perhaps the beloved disciple himself—he really had it out for Judas. Over and over in his version of the gospel, he adds editorial comments that leave the reader no doubt how evil and wicked Judas was. When Matthew and Mark recall this same episode of Jesus’ anointing at Bethany, it is not Judas who raises the objection about forgetting the needs of the poor but all of the disciples and some of the other people standing around. John, it seems, goes out of his way to throw shade on Judas.

To be frank, Judas probably deserved everything that John gave him, but I think his contempt for the traitor makes it harder for us to appreciate what really happened in Bethany that night. What if, just for a moment, we leave aside John’s dogged criticism of Judas—the portrayal of him as a thief—and, instead, make some rhetorical space in our minds to hear Judas’ question as if it were asked earnestly? What might we hear Jesus say to us if we were the ones who asked, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold for three hundred denarii—a whole year’s worth of wages—and the money given to the poor?”

It's a difficult question, and churches like ours, which spend lots of money every year on things as impermanent as incense and candles, would do well to consider it. I hope it won’t surprise you to hear that I don’t intend to use this sermon to justify our use of incense, candles, or any part of our congregation’s budget. I think the vestry does an excellent job of being faithful to God with the resources that you entrust to this church. What I want to do with this sermon is to wrestle honestly with the answer Jesus gives—an answer that is as hard to understand as the situation that provoked Judas’s question in the first place: “You will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.”

What does that mean? And how is that supposed to help us feel better about the fact that Mary just poured on Jesus’s feet some perfume that was worth enough money to feed a hungry family for a year? Because we’ll always have the poor with us? What sort of convoluted justification is that?

Well, it turns out that Jesus was quoting a passage from Deuteronomy, which, I think, has the potential to change the way we hear his answer. Deuteronomy 15 lays out some of the regulations for what is called the sabbatical year. According to Jewish law, every seventh year is a sabbatical—or sabbath. During that year, farmers are not supposed to plant crops or tend to what grows in their fields in order that the poor might gather whatever the land produces. Similarly, all debts that have been incurred during the previous six years are cancelled, no matter how much is still owed. Deuteronomy 15, which Jesus quotes in his reply to Judas, deals with the cancelation of those debts.

In that chapter of the Bible, God makes it clear that generous lending and the periodic cancellation of debts will ensure that no one in the land is poor. That is part of God’s vision for justice—a balanced economic system that ensures that no one will suffer generational poverty while others become rich at their expense. Although it might not sound fair to our contemporary, capitalist ears, the system was designed so that everyone—both lenders and borrowers—got a fair shake. 

But God knows that a system of justice cannot be complete without mercy. That’s why, in Deuteronomy 15, the law states that, even if the year of release is near and you know that you will have to cancel a debt before most of it can be repaid, “you shall not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor.” In other words, the merciful response to immediate needs must outweigh a logical or just approach to lending. Mercy outweighs justice.

Taking care of the poor by cancelling debts, the Bible teaches us, is an act of justice. But setting aside the logical implications of that system to be sure that no one goes hungry—even if it means an unfair redistribution of that wealth—is an act of mercy. To get this point across, Deuteronomy 15:11 declares, “There will never cease to be poor in the land; therefore…‘You shall open wide your hand to the poor and your needy neighbor.’” When Jesus says, “You will always have the poor with you,” he is quoting that verse to get across the same point—not to teach us to dismiss the needs of the poor but to recognize that becoming merciful is the only way we will ever be able to care for them fully. Mercy always outweighs justice, and Jesus uses Mary’s anointing of his feet to show it.

According to Jewish custom, even though contact with a corpse makes a person ritually impure, preparing a body for burial is an act of true kindness and mercy—one that can never be repaid. Though the laws of righteousness—of justice— prohibit it, the requirements for loving-kindness—or mercy—compel a person to tend to the needs of the dead. In a spiritual way, therefore, Mary’s act of devotion—of anointing Jesus’ body in preparation for burial—makes her a symbol of true mercy and a reminder to us that, even when it conflicts with our sense of right and wrong, mercy must come before justice. 

Perhaps for years, Mary of Bethany had kept that precious ointment for a special purpose. Without even knowing why, she had it tucked away, waiting for the right moment to come along. Not even the death of her brother Lazarus, which we read about in the previous chapter, was reason enough to use the perfumed oil. But there was something about this moment, as Jesus ate at the table in her house and laughed beside her brother, whose four-day journey into death had been miraculously reversed, that told her it was time.

Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. He had not disclosed to Mary and her siblings the fate that awaited him there, but somehow Mary could sense it. Perhaps the grief she experienced over her brother’s death had left a mark on her soul, allowing her to see what remained hidden from others. Like the black-winged Thestral from Harry Potter, which is visible only to those who have witnessed death, Mary is able to see that Jesus’s own death has come near. Although still a week away, it is close enough to stir up within Mary complex emotions of grief and love, compelling her to pour the perfume on Jesus’s feet in an act of pure devotion.

Yes, the needs of the poor are more important than a fancy bottle of perfume or the candles and incense we burn at the altar. But nothing is more important than our devotion to the one whose death is the fulfilment of God’s justice and mercy. In the cross of Christ, we see what Mary saw in Bethany that night—the death of God’s Son offered for the sake of the world. When it comes to pondering the nature of Christ’s death, we could remain comfortably in the realm of justice and ask such academic questions as for whom and under what conditions the death of Jesus is efficacious. But then we would miss the magnitude of God’s love enshrined upon the cross—a love that can only be approached as an act of mercy worthy of our complete devotion.

As followers of Jesus, who have been reconciled to God through the death of God’s Son, we must become like Mary of Bethany. We must leave behind our desire for clarity, fairness, and balance, no matter how appealing God’s justice may seem. Maybe that was Judas’s problem all along. Those who will not allow mercy to triumph even over justice cannot know the saving love of God, whose mercy never fails. Those who behold the magnitude of God’s mercy, revealed in Jesus Christ, are shaped by God’s mercy for a life of mercy, which is an offering that is pleasing to God.