Father have mercy upon us
There's a saying that goes along the lines of “give me justice when I'm wronged, but mercy when I wrong”, or something like that. Basically what it means is that when someone does something bad to us we want the full retribution of the law (and sometimes beyond) to happen to the offender, but when we do wrong we want the person who we upset to forgive us.
Often in life we make judgements. Little ones - like which slice of cake is the biggest and which one we should give to the other person, right up to how we run our lives. Judgements are black and white. We can decide one way or the other. Some are simple mathematics; which slice of the cake is bigger depends on its dimensions. But some require many other considerations; does our friend deserve the biggest slice of the cake, would giving them the smallest slice of the cake help with their diet, would they prefer the smallest slice and so on.
Some judgements are very complex and to help with some we have laws. Laws define how an individual of a society should behave, but how are these laws created in the first place, and what happens if they are not right. Democracy is based on the majority being right.
But what if it isn't? In some cases the majority isn't right. Four thieves stealing from one shop keeper would still be a majority.
And laws change over time. In times past women weren't allowed to drive cars unless someone walked in front with a red flag, now they can. Laws adapt to suit the situation that the times bring.
(Sometimes laws need to be changed but get forgotten. Such as all taxi drivers must carry at least one bail of hay for their horse, even if they don't have a horse!)
There doesn't seem any solid foundation, but for us there is. Laws were given by God and we must follow them. We see examples of what happened to those who chose not to follow God's laws, the exile that we've been looking at for the past few weeks shows us.
So while we may want mercy, we also have to be prepared for judgement.
Fortunately we have someone who will help us. Just as a defendant in court can have a barrister to plead his case, so we have Jesus who will help us when we go before God. Jesus died for us. That's how far he was willing to go to show that we really do need mercy. But it's also up to us to accept Jesus and what he has done for us, because without him we would get judgement whether we wanted it or not.