Summary
Kyrie Eleison
Kyrie eleison — "Lord, have mercy." Two simple Greek words, Kyrie (Lord) and eleison (have mercy), form one of the oldest cries of the church. In the ancient world the phrase was sometimes shouted as acclamation, hailing a victorious general paraded through the streets. On the lips of the church, however, it became something else entirely: the prayer of sinners who know they have nothing to bring but need.
The cry threads through Scripture. David prays it in Psalm 51:1 after Nathan exposes his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah — "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love." Blind Bartimaeus shouts it from the roadside in Luke 18:38: "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" The Canaanite woman of Matthew 15:22 pleads it for her tormented daughter. In every case, mercy is the cry of those who can do nothing for themselves.
The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18:9-14 sharpens what kind of mercy is being asked. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prays a prayer that is really a self-congratulation: he is not like other people, he fasts twice a week (more than the law required), he tithes everything. The tax collector stands far off, will not even lift his eyes, and beats his breast. That gesture — the clenched fist striking the chest — appears only one other place in the New Testament: Luke 23:48, where the crowds beat their breasts as they leave the cross. The grief of the tax collector and the grief at Calvary are bound together.
Strikingly, the word for "mercy" the tax collector uses is not the ordinary one. Bartimaeus and the Canaanite woman use the common term eleeō. The tax collector uses hilaskomai — a word that occurs only one other time in the New Testament, in Hebrews 2:17, where Jesus becomes "a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people." This is not a general appeal for kindness. It is an appeal for atonement, for satisfaction, for the wrath against sin to be answered. The tax collector is praying, in effect, "God, be propitiated toward me, the sinner." He goes home justified — because the very atonement he begged for is exactly what Christ has come to accomplish. As Ephesians 2:4-5 declares, "God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us…made us alive together with Christ." Of all the things Scripture says God is rich in, mercy is named first.
This is why the “Kyrie Eleison” belongs especially to Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent. The Alleluia is set aside; the church grows quieter; the forty-day walk toward the cross and empty tomb begins with repentance. The ashes traced on the forehead in the sign of the cross recall human frailty ("ashes to ashes, dust to dust"), God's just condemnation of sin, and — because ashes were also a cleansing agent in the ancient world — the renewal that comes only through Christ's blood.
The ashes wash off before the night is over. What does not wash off is the cross marked on the forehead at baptism, where the believer was claimed by the promises and victory of Jesus Christ. The Pharisee trusted in himself; the tax collector trusted in the divine sacrifice yet to come. The church, gathered in its frailty, prays with him: Kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy. He has. And He does.
Video citations
- “Kyrie Eleison” 2-22-23 — On this holy night, the church gathers. Ash Wednesday is one of the most somber of services. Good Friday, Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday begins that walk for the church of the 40 days leading to Holy…