The Mercy Rule
Win some, lose some.
So goes baseball.
The boys held their own against, well, a better team. They were only down 4-0 in the third inning while the last team to face this same opponent fell by 19 runs in the third.
But then came the fourth. Balls instead of strikes. Balls in the outfield. Balls in the infield. Pop flies missed. Ground balls passed. Balls thrown too far. Balls thrown too short. Balls thrown to the left or right of the baseman. Basemen nowhere near the base.
Not their finest moment.
Twelve runs later, they reached the welcome end to a long and painful inning.
And the end of the game, four innings short of regulation.
The young boy in the bleachers in front me, distracted by his own self for most of the game, popped up from his seat as folks started to leave.
“It’s over already?” A quick glance at the scoreboard told him all he needed to know about a game he’d mostly ignored. He paled a little. “Ohhh. The Mercy Rule.”
::
Ohhh. The Mercy Rule.
The Mercy Rule comes into play from time to time in sports that don’t have a game clock, stopping the game at the arbitrary point at which rulemakers have concluded that a team would have an insurmountable lead.
In our baseball league, that insurmountable lead is 15 runs.
Our boys know the Mercy Rule from both sides in their tournament play, whether the triumph of a 15 run lead or the humiliation of a 15 run deficit.
In either case, it is a chasm ruled too far to cross.
The Mercy Rule spares the languishing team.
It spares them when they come to a place where they clearly cannot win. But more than that, they cannot even get on with it and lose.
They cannot get out of the game.
But for the Mercy Rule, the thrashing would go on without end.
::
Oh, the Mercy Rule.
We know it ourselves, don’t we?
The enemy holds an insurmountable lead. His fills his scorecard front and back in his incriminating scrawl.
Sins and transgressions.
Failings and guilt.
Debt that could never be paid.
The game goes on and on and on. Inning after endless inning.
Hopelessness.
Humiliation.
Shame.
Until . . .
. . . the Mercy Rule.
::
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3-5)
In His great mercy.
Four of my favorite words in all the world when they string together like that.
The Mercy Rule underscores everything He does for us.
New birth.
Living hope.
Resurrection from dead.
Indestructible inheritance.
All because of the Mercy Rule.
Nice to have in baseball — lost without it for all eternity.
:: ::: ::
Yesterday I saw a store clerk stocking bag after bag of sunflower seeds on an end cap and realized that between the wind, the sun and now sunflower seeds, it’s just about baseball season. Thought it might be a nice time for this one from the archives.
Aah, the archives. Don’t remember this one. When I was a kid, playing sandlot baseball with a tennis ball in the neighbors field, we didn’t have a mercy rule. We played nine innings, regardless or until our parents called us home for supper.
In our digital age, the archives are always there. Whether it be email, computer backups, security cameras, cell phone cameras, a digital record is out there somewhere. The scary part is that those long gone records can come back to haunt us, embarrass us, incriminate us.
But think about this. God, through the sacrificial death of Christ, wipes out those archives/sins. Scripture says that they are removed as far as the East is from the West. Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift.
Dad
2010/04/21 at 6:43 PM
They say the Internet is forever, Dad, or at least until you get called home for supper.
Just to make you wiggle a little, I followed an incoming link to the blog back to a page of “paul willingham.” Has some helpful information like how to say your name in Pig Latin (because you need a website to help you with that — how did we grow up without it?) and then a list of page links referencing your name. Includes some of the pieces you’ve written here and then some random other pages about guys with whom you share your name. (And, drat, I can’t find it back now to send it to you.)
It’s all out there — but just like you say, through Jesus’ finished work, He wipes it all away. It is unspeakable, that gift.
2010/04/22 at 8:42 AM
Nice, what you wrote there Lyla.
And then Dad adds the kicker.
You two make quite a pair.
2010/04/21 at 11:29 PM
2010/04/22 at 8:43 AM
I liked this post the first time around. Yet it seems more dear to me reading it this morning. Perhaps because His mercy rules, His “unspeakable gift” “through the sacrificial death of Christ” is more dear to me right now, where I am today. I agree with Jennifer, “you two make quite a pair.”
2010/04/22 at 7:54 AM
It spoke to me a little more deeply this time around too, Nancy. His mercy, seems the more I know of Him the better it gets.
2010/04/22 at 8:44 AM
as a mom way too familiar with sitting in the stands of one sport or another, I am familiar with the mercy rule.
and as a trying to be , but not always getting it right, I find great comfort in it.
2010/04/22 at 7:51 PM
Deb, I’m on bleachers more often than the couch, all year round…saw your post the other day from the soccer field and smiled in solidarity.
But mercy, it keeps me alive.
2010/04/22 at 9:07 PM
I love your illustration. It is wonderful for baseball, but I couldn’t imagine facing eternity without it.
2010/04/24 at 10:26 PM
Lyla:
Your faithful readers probably don’t need to hear from me more than once per blog but I keep thinking about the “Mercy Rule”. And it brought to mind my high school days. Our high school required English all four years (at least I think it did and I did take English all 4 years, although my comments, grammar, syntax and sentence construction may suggest otherwise). One of the elements of the English curriculum was studying one of the Bard’s plays each year.
I believe it was 10th grade when we studied “The Merchant of Venice”. We were required to memorize Portia’s speech as a part of the grade. I know, it seems I gravitated to teachers and professors who were into memorization. I still can recall the opening lines of the speech.
“The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,
Upon the place beneath.
It is twice blessed.
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
It is mightiest in the mightiest,
It becomes the throned monarch better than his crown.
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
An attribute to awe and majesty.
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself.
And earthly power dost then become likest God’s,
Where mercy seasons justice.”
There’s more but old Billy had a pretty good handle on the “Mercy Rule”.
Dad
2010/04/25 at 12:52 PM