Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus said, "Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful." Merciful means full of pity toward the undeserving and unworthy. It is one of God's Gospel attributes. When Moses wanted to see God on Mt. Sinai, "The Lord passed before [Moses] and proclaimed, 'The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation'".

We tend to fixate on the second half of the Lord's revelation to Moses: He will by no means clear the guilty, but will punish evildoers and their children. In other words, we think of God as more just than merciful, and so we think, "Let them have what they deserve! Let justice be served!" But notice that the Lord does not want the guilty to perish eternally; in the first half of the passage He describes Himself as slow to anger, and so He does not give up on the guilty without a fight, but calls on them to return to Him in repentance. The prophet Joel simply echoed God's own Words when He said, "Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster."

What makes Him slow to anger is that He is "merciful and gracious...abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness...forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin." He doesn't want to give us what we deserve, which would be hell. He wants to show us His grace, mercy, peace, love, kindness, goodness in the forgiveness of all our sins. And to accomplish this, He makes the ultimate sacrifice of His own Son on the cross to reconcile the world to Himself, before we even had a chance to repent. From the cross, Jesus prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do". Jesus prayed for their forgiveness, before they had even repented. Jesus begs for God to have mercy on them, and Jesus Himself knows that His Father is merciful. His prayer was not in vain.

And the "they" who crucified Jesus was not just the Jews and Romans, but you too: "they" means all people of all times and places, and our ignorance does not make us any less guilty. What Jesus means by "they know not what they do" is that we were lost in the ignorance of sin; we had not through the implications of what our sins would result in (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:8): that God would go so far as to send His Son to die in our place. But God's wisdom trumps our ignorance. The Innocent One died for us guilty ones, in an apparently unfair but truly merciful exchange. On the cross, Jesus got what we deserved, God's justice was served, and His mercy triumphed.

As Jesus said, "For God loved the world this way: he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him". Or as St. Paul said, "All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them". He did not count men's trespasses against them, but counted them against His beloved Son, Jesus Christ. St. Paul again writes, "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation".

There is great joy in this message of reconciliation, the Gospel that God has made peace with you in His Son. And all of that happened before you were even born, before you ever had a chance to repent of your inborn sinfulness. You were reconciled to God by His merciful work in Christ, and on that basis St. Paul says, "We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (2 Corinthians 5:20). That reconciliation can only be received through faith, and the one who believes in Christ's reconciliation responds, "Father, I believe that You are no longer angry with me because of my sins, because You have reconciled me to Yourself through the blood of Your Son. I am sorry for my sins and thank You for forgiving me."

In Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, and in Holy Baptism He has delivered this reconciliation to you, as St. Paul says, God "saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit". In your Baptism Your Father was merciful unto you. With the water and God's Word, Christ's Father became your Father, for there you were given the forgiveness of sins, union with the death and resurrection of Christ, new birth into God's Kingdom, the adoption of sons.

And now that God has shown complete mercy, forgiveness, and salvation to you, Jesus says to you sons of God, "Be merciful as your Father is merciful." But this is not something you can accomplish on your own. He wants you to ask for it. Your Father invites you to pray without ceasing, "Our Father, who art in heaven..." And as we cling to Him in faith, and as we pray the words Jesus taught us to pray, our merciful Father wants to make us merciful children. In that very prayer, we are constantly reminded to "Be merciful, as your Father is merciful," because first off, we remember that He is "Our Father," our merciful Father who has reconciled Himself to us in Christ, our merciful Father who has invited us to pray, and from that fact we pray "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." Or more literally from the Greek, "Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors". This petition for mercy is also as Jesus said in our text, "Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven").

"Be merciful, as your Father is merciful." Your merciful Father showed mercy to you even before you repented, and now you also are to be merciful even before others have repented of their sins against you. This means that you are to be ready and willing to forgive everyone, even before they have asked for forgiveness. "Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful."

Now it is true that reconciliation cannot occur between two people if the offending party does not want to be reconciled. St. Paul says, "Be reconciled to God," and this exhortation reminds us that people often do reject God's reconciliation in Christ through unbelief. Likewise, your merciful forgiveness of others may be met with callousness rather than repentance. Jesus said, "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, 'I repent,' you must forgive him". But even before reconciliation is initiated, you must be merciful and forgive in your heart even before the other has apologized. You must seek to be reconciled by speaking the truth in love to those who have sinned against you. Jesus said, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you". You must show your love by doing good even to those who have sinned against you, even if they have not yet repented.

At the same time, don't forget that reconciliation between people is a two way street, as St. Paul says in our Epistle, "If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all" (Romans 12:18). The Lord knows that you cannot make someone else repent, you cannot force another to love you in return for your love and forgiveness. But Jesus gives clear instructions: "If you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses".

"Be merciful, as your Father is merciful." Jesus did not say this would be easy, and in fact, Jesus knows it is an impossible command to keep perfectly. We have all failed to show mercy; we have all executed judgment on people we were not authorized to judge; we have all condemned those whom the Lord desires to save; we have all failed to forgive those who have sinned against us; we have all harbored grudges. So repent, and hear the Good News: through Jesus Christ, your Father in heaven is "a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin."

In Baptism, God became your Father, and each day He daily and richly forgives you by His mercy. In Absolution, your Father pronounces complete forgiveness of your sins for the sake of Jesus Christ. In Holy Communion, He mercifully invites you to receive the true body and blood of His Son for the forgiveness of all of your sins, and to assure you of His unfailing mercy. And it is by receiving this gift of forgiveness through the Gospel and the Means of Grace that you are then able to begin to forgive those who sin against you. As St. John said, "We love, because [God] first loved us." We forgive, because He first forgave us. "Be merciful, as even your Father is merciful." We are merciful, only after He has been merciful to us. Your merciful Father wants to make merciful children out of you, and to do that, He wants you to rest peacefully on those last words: your Father is merciful; so merciful that He has given eternal life to a sinner like you. Amen.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.