Hymn: “At Calvary” – William R. Newell (1868-1956)
Tune: CALVARY
This is a longer than usual hymnline:
Mercy there was great,
and grace was free.
Pardon there was
multiplied to me.
There my burdened soul
found liberty.
The “there” in these three phrases is “At Calvary,” the
title of the hymn.
I am very fond of the mercy of God. I’ve said that before,
and I’ll likely say it again on these posts. I may have been an adult before I
realized that the words mercy and grace are interchangeable. When you grow up
in Sunday School, you learn the list of words – the Christian vocabulary – but you
don’t always get the meaning of each one… at least not enough to compare them
with one another. It was, however, a good day when that light bulb went off.
With maturity, I began to appreciate the notion of grace
and/or mercy. When it occurred to me that one cannot be a person of grace and
be judgmental at the same time, it truly revolutionized my Christian life. When
you grow up with an implied “us and them” mentality, judgmentalism just comes
naturally. We never stood and sang together, “Let’s take the role of judge for
those who disagree with us.” (That works to the ELLACOMBE tune, by the way!)
But we often sang hymns about mercy and grace… like the one cited here today.
To my young – dare I say “rebellious” spirit – I felt like we were not living
out the message of some of our favorite hymns and gospel songs.
Whenever I’m called upon to elaborate (or devotionalize) on
mercy, I quote these three phrases from the refrain of this hymn. It tells us
1) The mercy of God is huge
2) The grace of God is a free gift.*
3) The pardon (forgiveness) of God was distributed
exponentially.
4) The liberating power of God unburdens… unchains.
I’ve even quoted this hymn at weddings, encouraging couples
to commit to treating one another with great grace in their union.
The next time you need a lift in your day, say (or sing)
this chorus over to yourself. Unless you’re just tied down in overwhelming
judgementalism, it will be a total refreshment to your soul.
Or the next time you feel a hypercritical, disapproving urge
coming on, start humming these truths from the hymnal; see if you don’t find
them to head you more toward Christlikeness and further away from that person
you might easily become.
Hear Some of Our Heroes
Sing This Beautifully
* - I sometimes think
this means that at the cross-event, the grace of God was loosed… set free to
act as an agent of salvation and reconciliation. That’s probably a stretch, but
if the phrase were “… and grace was freed,” it would make perfectly good sense.
Either way, I think that IS what happened.
In this life God's mercy is without limit, rolling around us like the clouds, like a flowing river. And don't we need it as sinful men - to help us overcome by the power of the Cross of Christ !
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