God's Mercy

I am always bemused when I hear or see a comment made about a woman who, having had an abortion, is guilty of murder. In a recent comment relating to one of my posts on the forgotten child, apparently made by a woman, the comment reads in part: a woman who has, or even allows, an abortion is guilty of murder.

We live in a perverted, promiscuous society in which a young woman, dating a man, is expected to have sex otherwise the man will just drop her as a date. Many young women find it difficult to find a man who will date her unless she has sex with him and should she become pregnant, the man disappears. Many such women do not seek an abortion but become single moms. Some young women who are still under the guidance of their parents are forced by them to have an abortion; or the boy who impregnates her forces her to have an abortion.  Is she guilty of murder? I think not. 

In my pro-life work over several decades I have met many women who have had abortions but have come about, through God's grace, to realize what they did was wrong. However, many of them bought into the concept promoted by pro-abortion advocates that early in the pregnancy there is no baby, there is only a mass of tissue, and have had an abortion based on this false concept. Are they guilty of murder? I think not. I wonder how many women (or really how few), knowing that her pregnancy involves a live human being have nonetheless, with malice, killed that child in an abortion. Perhaps in such a case we might ask if she is guilty of murder.

More to the point, if we are God loving people, what does Scripture say? The Gospels abound in instances in which Jesus, the son of God, shows His Mercy and love for women in times in which women were really considered second-class citizens.  

The woman caught in adultery; the Pharisees and others bring her to Jesus, ready to stone her, but first ask Jesus what He thinks since Moses had said that such a woman should be stoned to death. Jesus does not answer, but seemingly ignoring them, makes writing in the ground.  Apparently put to shame, the woman's accusers drift away one by one leaving Jesus alone with the woman.  Jesus asks her whether there is anyone left to condemn her and she, responding no, is told that neither He will condemn her but that she should go her way and not sin again.

The Samaritan woman at Jacob's well; Jesus asks her for a drink because he is thirsty after a long trip. The woman first responds by asking Jesus, a Jew, why he would ask a Samaritan woman for a drink, when Samaritans are hated by the Jews.  During the following conversation Jesus asks her to bring her husband to the well.  She responds she has no husband, whereupon Jesus responds that she speaks the truth because she has lived with previous men who were not her husbands either. Surprised, she responds that he is certainly a prophet and there will be a time when the Messiah comes and tells them all things. Jesus then reveals to her that he himself is the Messiah in one of only two cases in Scripture in which Jesus makes such a revelation. Through her conversion many Samaritans in her town come to believe that Jesus is indeed the Messiah.  One can only imagine the love Jesus has poured out to her and how privileged she is, a woman, and a Samaritan.

Mary Magdalene, from whom seven demons were expelled, is loved and privileged  by the risen Christ by being the first person to whom Jesus appears after His resurrection.

Jesus, in so many ways, cautions and warns us through Scripture not to judge others and condemn them to punishment because none of us know the extent to which God has shown His Mercy. While he was on earth Jesus associated with sinners and when asked by Pharisees and the teachers of the law why He did so, responded that sinners are in need of healing; and indeed His Mercy.