By Cindi Veldheer DeYoung
Psalm 123:
1 To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
2 As the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
until he has mercy upon us.
3 Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
4 Our soul has had more than its fill
of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud.
It’s Maundy Thursday: watch the hands of Jesus. We see Jesus’s hands holding and cleaning dirty feet, then breaking bread and lifting up the cup, sharing food and his very heart.
We lift our eyes to the heavens, for mercy. Our appeal to the cosmic reign of God becomes manifest in the gestures Jesus makes to care for the disciples. Jesus’s intimate gestures extend throughout the cosmos—far beyond that table.
Asking for mercy is easy, until we realize how much we’ve enthroned ourselves with contempt. We don’t so much fear the contempt of others as we cringe at the way our own contempt indicts us of being so graceless. Who are we to ask for mercy?
We swim in contempt these days—so many people do not see the world the way we do! Might our contempt get arrested in the awareness that God in Christ cares for those whom we’ve held in contempt. Then, Lord, in your mercy, hear my prayer. And may we not only see your gestures of grace, but do them, as you command. May we have mercy, Lord, we pray, so that those whose eyes watch us see your mercy.
Prayer: May your mercy work through me so completely that my soul pours out ever more freely to all. Amen.