Holy Week is the most momentous time of the year for Christians. The faithful somberly recall the events leading up to Jesus’ death on the cross. By now, we know them by heart—the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Judas’s betrayal, the Last Supper, Jesus’ arrest, crucifixion, death, and burial. It is all so poignantly familiar to those of us who have been Christ followers for a while. But if anything about Holy Week can stop us in our tracks and capture our hearts anew, it is the mercy of it. When we pause to ponder Jesus’ death on the cross, we become aware of a mercy so wide that it boggles our minds. Mercy happens when we are shown compassion we do not earn or deserve. When Jesus gives his life on the cross in our place, to atone for our own sin—that is simply mercy writ large.

As the English hymn writer Frederick Faber observed, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea” (umh, no. 121). In our scripture reading today, we see that God’s mercy is so wide that it includes all people—Jews and Gentiles, saints and sinners, influential people and nobodies. This is good news. God provides for the needs of all people all over the world. Not only do humans receive mercy; God’s providential care extends to animals too. God provides for all living things on the earth—people, wild beasts, fish, birds, bugs.

Because of God’s mercy, nothing gets lost, and no one falls through the cracks. In a world that in so many ways tries to tell us that we don’t matter, don’t measure up, and are not “essential,” God begs to differ. In God’s merciful acts for all creation, every living creature is provided for, loved, and treasured.