What Gets Under Your Skin?

What "gets under your skin?" What really drives you CrAzY?

Is it slow drivers? Or those drivers who get traffic rules-amnesia when on their cell phones, doing their makeup, and diapering an infant not in it's car seat?

Maybe the mud-slinging political ads up-coming in this presidential election year?

Or whiney teens protesting the unreasonable house rules?

Speaking of cell phones, those inconsiderate people who think the Cell Phone God takes precedence over the peons attempting to wait on them?

Telephone solicitors?

Those athletes who do the funky in the end-zones after a touchdown?

Or eight minutes of commercials between five minutes of programming on TV?

But what if I told you that Jesus says there is a blessing in store for those who get under other people's skin? Yep, it's really OK to get under someone's skin.

However, before you grab the cell phone, do the funky, or whine about your limitations to others, you might want to get the context of His instructions.

In the hillside sermon in Matthew 5, know as the Beatitudes, Jesus includes among those receive special blessings in this life, "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy (v.7)." Even though the New Testament is written in Greek, many people don't know that Jesus spoke his native tongue of Aramaic. The word for merciful in the Aramaic is "to get under another's skin."

It means "to empathize or be empathetic." in today's language. You look past the obvious, past the outward appearances, to understand what another person is experiencing . . . care enough to get involved by sharing their burdens.

I heard recently of minister who was speaking at a family retreat. One man sitting on the front row repeated dozed and woke during the minister's talk. By the end of the second session, the speaker found himself annoyed by the dropsy listener, wishing the man would just stay in bed rather than be a distraction to himself, the other speakers, and the audience.

At a lunch break, the wife of the sleepy man introduced herself to the preacher and asked for prayer for her husband who was undergoing chemo-therapy for cancer. One side-effect of the medication to counter-act the chemo was drowsiness. Despite the inconvenience, the husband wanted to come to the retreat because he soon would not be able to meet with the people of God.

The idea of mercy is more than just empathy. It is not passive--it implies action. It carries the idea of helping the afflicted, to bring help to the wretched. It is similar to "walking a mile in another man's moccasins," as the Native American wisdom advises.

Years ago, a missionary friend told me of his work among a primitive tribe deeop in the jungles of South America. Until his arrival, there was no written language, so he set about creating an alphabet and translating the Bible into their tongue. At Mark 10:26--"Who then can be saved?"--my friend discovered there was no word for salvation in their culture. The missionary struggled for months attempting to find something that would convey what Christ's death meant to lost men.

One day, he was attending the birth of a native baby girl. According to custom, families slept in hammocks, one above the other, over a smoldering fire which kept insects at bay. The bottom hammock was reserved for the mother, with a hole cut in the center for purposes of giving birth. The newborn would drop into the ashes. Culturally, boy babies were highly regarded and quickly pulled from the ashes by the father; a sign of acceptance. Girl babies, if not picked up by the father, would have their heads bashed in by the old women of the village.

On this occasion, even though it was a female child, the father pickup the girl and handed it to the older women to clean up. Quickly the missionary ask his native interpreter what that process was called. This become the salvation word in tribe's New Testament--"to be plucked from the ashes of sin and accepted by the heavenly Father."

That's what mercy is all about. I have been rescued from the ashes of my failure, mistakes, and willful sin. I don't deserve rescue. I don't deserve love. I don't deserve forgiveness. I don't deserve acceptance. But He did . . . Aad He does. His mercies are new every morning.

Matthew 5:7 says I will be blessed (or happier) if I "get under the skin if other's" in need; then, when I am exhausted, weary, lonely, and forgotten He promises He will provide those who will "get under my skin".