Justice and Mercy

And the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.” But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the LORD of hosts. “As I called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear,” says the LORD of hosts, “and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and the pleasant land was made desolate.”
Zechariah 7:8–14
+
Justice and Mercy
The Lord gives his gifts by way of the ear. Martin Luther used to say that the ear was the organ of faith. You can remember the many times that Jesus lifted his voice and cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” The message of the Gospel has been prepared by our God for the salvation of the world. He sends it. Perhaps we forget that no human being has asked for this Good News. It was God’s great idea to send it. It was the will of our God to send Jesus to the cross so that the whole world would be rescued from sin and death and the devil. No human heart could have constructed such a rescue plan. Thanks be to God that he has come up with this plan. We are made new by the life that is spent on the cross. We are made children of God because the perfect Second Person of the Trinity becomes sin for us so that sin could die on the cross and live no more. But when we stop up our ears and we refuse to listen, God takes his gifts and gives them to others who have not stopped up their ears and have not refused to listen. When we refuse to give thanks, when we refuse to forgive, when we refuse to listen, God takes his Word and his gifts away from us. By the power of his Holy Spirit, we listen. By the power of his intervention in our life, we believe. He grants us faith by interrupting. We become imitators of Jesus because of the faith that the Holy Spirit plants. He who has ears to hear, let him hear, and let us read, mark, and inwardly digest this Good News. Jesus is Risen for our justification.