December 15

John 1: ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Dear Jesus, I have struggled to find my place in this world. So often I strive to please you, only to find I continue to disappoint. So often I think I have conquered various weaknesses, only to have you reveal to me yet another. Help me to climb out of the law and my tendency to define my faith by my own righteous acts. Please teach me to rest in your promise and your mercy as I discover that Your Love is in me for the precise reason of teaching me to truly serve you. Amen.

 
Reality paints a picture that cannot be undone or denied. Grace is Truth. Grace lives among us. Grace has a face and a name and a personality which is undeniable every second of our life, each hour that we live. It is very easy to find her. This morning I took a deep breath. I stopped to ponder as the oxygen filled my lungs as I imagined this invisible gift being transformed into life within my body. I marveled as the air so quickly escaped as carbon dioxide, quickly climbing forth from my mouth and my nose. Such a simple moment of physiology becomes an inexplicable and powerful moment of grace. I had not done a single thing to earn the air I breathe. I had not contributed in any way to the photosynthesis that creation had perfected in order to gift me breath. I had simply taken it all in, mixed it up inside of me with no effort or planning on my part, and exhaled it back into creation so that this process of grace might repeat itself inside the living. Breathing - an undeniable event of grace that I have learned to take for granted as surely as the warmth of sunlight landing upon my cheek. Grace surrounds us, overwhelms us, and guards us without expectation, without withholding tax, and without any desire to cease the gifts so faithfully delivered moment after moment after gracious moment. This is reality. This ought to be Truth. But in a post modern world the Truth of Grace once again is made subservient to cultural and personal interpretation.

Allow me to begin in an environment I know very well - The Church. In Christian circles the word grace, the Greek word “charis”, is used in two very powerful contexts. First of all, grace is that which we receive from God through Christ as Jesus comes to this world as one of us, lives fully and completely the law of God on our behalf, then dies in our place so that what Adam forfeits in the garden can be reclaimed for us as gift of God’s grace. Jesus did not have to come into our world. He did so as an act of grace. Jesus did not have to give himself over to the authorities in order to bear in his body what each of us deserves. He did this as an act of grace. Jesus did not have to shed his blood for us. He did this as a supreme act of grace. Jesus did not have to go the full way and give his life as a ransom for many. He did this as an act of underserved, unmerited, unimaginable favor, which we call grace.



This concept is difficult to grasp in our world. Because of our personal investments in things we call “justice”, “fairness”, and “equality”, we find it very difficult to emphasis “grace” the way the Biblical worldview would demand, or the way Jesus does. Our culture has created all these little slogans that drive us toward un-grace. “You get what you deserve”, “You are what you eat”, “You reap what you sow”, are as much a part of our thinking as the songs we hear on the radio. We often are carried along in the wind of our time with phrases like, “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps”, “God helps those who help themselves”, or “Trust is not given, it is earned.” We use these phrases not only to guide our lives, but to define our particular cultural expressions of truth. We do this in our churches as well. Though none of these sayings are Biblical in nature, and in many ways are in direct contradiction to Biblical Truth, we hang our proverbial hats on them as if they are the sacred writings of God on the walls or our sanctuaries. Grace is fine and dandy, as long as it is a word used in Easter sermons and extended to people we love, but ask me to make it the essence of how I live and treat people, even people who have wronged me, then “you reap what you sow” and “God helps those who helps themselves” will do me just fine.
 

Several years ago a band by the name of U2 brought a message to the world about a man who came to us in order to turn the world upside down, bringing such a transformation through the planet that the armies of this world would never be able to thwart it, bringing such a message of peace that all people for all time in all places would be brought to a place of surrender. He came to us that first Christmas so long ago, and He comes to us today in the name of Love:

One man come in the name of love
One man come and go
One man come here to justify
One man to overthrow
In the name of love!
One man in the name of love
In the name of love!
What more? In the name of love! (Bono)

Advent points to a reality that is the opposite extreme of our slogans of un-grace. In reality, Christmas is a celebration of God pulling us up from a pit of despair so deep we would never escape it otherwise. Advent is God’s way of announcing to the world – “God helps those who could never help themselves.” “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace” (Is. 9:6) The gift of God’s Son to the world is God’s way of acknowledging our hopeless and helpless state of being. If there had been some law or system of government or religious institution that could solve the problems of our world, Jesus would not have been necessary. Advent is God’s answer. Advent is the beginning of our only answer. Advent is God’s final word in a world full of people searching for and proclaiming autonomy and freedom as they search for human solutions they will never find apart from the gracious gift of God.

(Jesus casts a shadow over sin and death) 

December 16

John 1:  ¹⁵ (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) ¹⁶ Indeed, we have all received grace after grace from His fullness. (Out of his fullness we have all received grace over and above grace already given.)

Dear Jesus, I must decrease, and you must increase. It is so difficult for me to actually live this out, to allow you the center of my life and my being. I try to give you my days, and then as soon as I surrender to you I take it back and do my own thing. Please teach me to bring to you my life in such a way that I will allow you to increase in me, moment by moment, day by day, and in every way. Amen.

It is sometimes difficult to understand exactly how God’s grace changes everything. Growing up in a Pentecostal Church I found myself to be a “grace challenged” parishioner. I was always the first to the altar at the midweek service because there was a not a lot of teaching about security in Christ, at least not to the degree that it stuck inside me. I believed that without my mid-week repentance session at the altar, I would be trouble if Jesus decide to return on a Friday. Saturday was my high anxiety day, for it was the longest time period between trips to the Altar. I simply did not know how to rest in God’s grace as a teenager. This I attribute to two things: “my own theological inadequacies in seeking and learning Biblical Truth; and the inadequacies of those who taught me in terms of their understanding of the truth meaning of grace for the child of God. My Teachers were stuck in the slogans that are pervasive in our postmodern world.

 

Let’s take the example of one of the phrases that undermine the gospel in the culture in which we live: “God helps those who help themselves.” This slogan seems so simple and straight forward that we rarely stop to think about the implications. I mean, who can argue with this logic? It makes sense in this world to encourage people to operate with the mindset that God expects us to make the most of our lives, seize our opportunities, take responsibility for our personal growth, and give God all the time and resources He may need to actually make something special out of our lives.

It seems, in a culture full of educational, vocational and personal opportunity that we would teach people to be willing to start down the right road, if we in fact desire God to help us along the way. After all, “footprints in the sand” only tells half of the story. The other times we don’t need to be carried, we’ve got it under control. The rest of the time we are walking where we should be walking, doing what we should be doing, honoring the faith in ways that show people how wonderful we really are. Why would we expect God to lend a hand to people who show no interest in morality, the Christian faith, or don’t even acknowledge God’s love for them in the first place? It makes very little sense for God to invest energy in persons who simply don’t care about the things God is concerned about. Grace is good, but grace wasted on people who don’t realize their need for grace and could care less about it, seems a colossal waste of time.

Now, I understand that people don’t verbalize this so clearly, but our lives reflect the spirit of these words none the less. “God helps those who help themselves.” Every time we put stipulations on our forgiveness, or migrate toward people who share our values, or invest time and money in those who will work our programs, or donate to charities that emphasize personal effort on the part of the recipient, or make our gracious acts toward those we deem worthy of our gracious acts, or worship with those whose life style conforms to our standard, or sit under teachers who we see as holy and righteous, or share our faith with those who worship the way we worship, or only attend bible studies taught by those we agree with, or punish people in our hearts for not giving the way we give, or avoid those who we think are tainted with unthinkable sin, or avoid those who have tattoos and nose rings, we are limiting God’s grace. We are convincing ourselves that Advent does not apply to everyone all the time, at least when the coming of the Christ Child is being extended through me. “God helps those who help themselves”, we quote in unison, as if the mere saying of these words by enough people will actually make them true.

In reality, this is the exact opposite of the gospel. Paul taught us that “while we were sinners, counted as enemies of God, Christ died for us.” Jesus whispers from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do”, long before any of those listening below became aware of the grace He was offering them. The timing of grace is what makes our forgiveness a reality. It is given before it can be deserved. It is offered without considering the worthiness of the recipient. It happens before we even know we need it and long before we consciously acknowledge its existence. While we are busy trying to convince the world we are worth loving, God is busy loving us into the place where we can realize we will never, in and of ourselves, be worthy of His love for us. His love, his help, his mercy, and his choices toward us would never take place if God waited for us to “help ourselves.” A corpse cannot do anything to bring itself to life. An enemy is not interested in putting my needs before his own. A person estranged from God is running as fast as He can to escape His gaze and His judgment. None of us want to be found out. None of us are comfortable allowing someone to see us inside and out, know all there is to know, and then stand on our own merit, every thought and every deed, somehow convincing ourselves we deserve good for our not so good. We all understand deep inside there is no life without grace. And the Bible is very clear. Without the atmosphere of the grace of God, in which God freely gives Himself to us in spite of the fact we will never merit this gift, we are left without hope in this world and the next. “God helps those who will never be able to help themselves” is in fact The Truth. “Indeed, we have all received grace after grace from His fullness, for although the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”