Following Jesus often means that you say and do things that run contrary to the established religious order of the day. In fact, we Jesus consistently confounding the religious elites by doing things such as dining with notorious sinners and tax collectors.
On one such occasion, we find Jesus again dining with these people to the dismay of the Pharisees, who asked his disciples why their teacher eats with these people who, according to the law of Moses, they should have nothing to do with.
“Following Jesus often means you say and do things contray to the established religious order of the day.”
Jesus overhears this discussion, and responds to them that it's not the healthy people who need a doctor, but the sick. He proceeds to hand them this thought - Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. And then, to wrap this whole thought process up, He leaves us with how this impacts His decision making - for I did not come to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance. (Matthew 9:10-13)
In other words, the only way to fully understand why Jesus is out there among the people that religion has thrown by the wayside is because of those words: I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
The original reference for this verse is found in the book of Hosea. For the sake of context, Hosea was written around the time of the fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and Hosea is looking at the Israelites and seeing that they've been unfaithful to God and His covenant time and time again.
As he relays God's frustration, wondering what to do with His wayward people who had gone off into worshipping other gods, we see God issuing this plea to His people, "For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." (Hosea 6:6)
In other words, while God called for sacrifices under the Abrahamic covenant, that was not truly what He desired. He was after mercy. Do you remember Jesus' words to the disciples? In Luke 6:36, while instructing them on how to treat those who considered themselves to be enemies of Him and His followers, He called for them to be merciful as their Father in heaven is merciful. In a similar passage of scripture, in Matthew 5:45, the exhortation is to not just do good to those who are good to us, but to be like our Father in heaven who causes the rain to fall on the just and unjust alike.
This lines up with what the Asaph shows us in the 50th Psalm. He says that God isn't upset with the Israelites sacrifices, but that God doesn't need them, "For the animals of the forest are mine, and I own the cattle on a thousand hills." (Psalm 50:10)
“The exhortation is to not just do good to those who are good to us, but to be like our Father in heaven who causes the rain to fall on the just and unjust alike.”
What we are seeing is that while the Pharisees had perfected their sacrifices, down to the herbs they received from their gardens and they tithed on, they missed the point entirely. In fact, in Luke 11:42, Jesus tells them that while all were doing was well and good, they had completely skipped justice and the love of God, which should never have been passed by at all.
While it's commonplace to think of our Christian lives in terms of sacrifice, that shouldn't be our main thrust. It's easy for preachers and churches to get up and call their people to sacrifice things, but it's another thing entirely for them to get up and call for their people to merciful, to be kind to those who deserve it and those don't, just like God is kind to all.
That's difficult because mercy is messy. Mercy is not black and white, mercy is living in the grey. Sacrifice can give us rules by which we live, but mercy can make us genuinely uncomfortable at times.
Do you remember the story of the woman caught in adultery? She was dragged, likely naked or wrapped in a sheet before Jesus because the scripture tells us that she was caught in the very act itself. What the men who brought her to Jesus did was advocate what the sacrificial system taught them and demanded - Moses said that we should stone her. What do you want us to do?
“Mercy is messy. Mercy is not black and white, mercy is living in the grey. ”
Now, Jesus knew this was a setup, whereby the leaders were looking for something to accuse Him for, because He had been preaching this radical love, being kind to your neighbor, showing mercy and compassion to all those He came in contact with. So He stooped down, and started playing in the dirt - the Bible says he actually was writing in the dirt with His finger.
They kept asking Him and pressing Him until He stood up and told them, "He who is without sin among you, let Him cast the first stone." And the Bible says they all left, from the oldest to the youngest.
In other words, His statement to them was, "If you've never needed mercy in your life, you can go ahead and fulfill the Law of Moses by stoning her." Jesus knew that they all know they had sinned and needed mercy at some point, like we all have, and therefore would not be fit to stone the woman.
Once they all left, Jesus forgave her, removed the condemnation from her, and told her to sin no more.
What does this look like in your life? When someone comes to you and they've been considering a divorce, they've had an abortion, they're struggling with lust or a porn problem...are you going to respond with condemnation and demands? Or will you err on the side of mercy, recognizing that that was what God was after from the beginning? Will show grace to a person in desperate need of that grace, realizing that the point of everything we see in the Bible is to drive us towards mercy, compassion, and love?
God's after mercy, not sacrifice. Look for ways to show that mercy to others today.
By Grace,
Dave