Monday, August 31, 2009

Grace

There are so many concepts that we say Christianity hinges on. This may just be because it sounds good to say something hinges on one idea, though on the other side maybe it is because God, Christ, is the center. That is why his name is in Christianity. And Christ being God is so encompassing that choosing one thing as what he wants to communicate to us a little impossible because he is all of that. Jesus is love. Jesus is truth. Jesus is compassion. Jesus was a healer, he did evangelize, he was full of wisdom. And his life was a testimony of grace.
All of these things are true about Jesus, and should be true about his followers. There are so many other things that could be listed with those just listed because Jesus crammed so much into three years that in over two millenia we are still scratching our heads and leaving our jaws gaped open saying "what?". We don't get it, well we kind of do but not really. One of the ones i think we miss the most out of all of them, which maybe is why we have trouble with some of the other ones is grace.
Christians and Atheists alike and all persuasions in between seem able to quote John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that He sent his only begotten son. That is grace. In all of history humans have sucked. God made us good, but then we went and did something that wasn't cool. We took control away from God. So God justly had to punish us. We had to work now, God still loved us, but we had to work to live. Our relationship with God was different now, but instead of us trying to restore it, we decided to carnally dive inward and take more control and force God away.
This is like the teenager that does something wrong, is then grounded, but instead of apologizing and admitting their err, sneaks out the window running away. The father would be heart broken over their child running away. Equally so God wept for us leaving him. Over time we wouldn't just leave him thinking we new better but we would join together and form new gods in our rebellion. The bible describes us as prostituting ourselves to these fake gods. Imagine being this father again desperately wanting to have your child back, then you get word that they are in the city and someone saw them on that street corner. As soon as you hear them say that you know what they mean. Your child is giving themselves away, again and again. Slowly being destroyed by one abusive stranger after another, being whittled away into despair as they try to desperately try and regain the love they used to freely have. What is a father to do what was our father to do?
God being God though new exactly what was going to happen. It is part of who he is to know yet to love us through everything. He formed us with his hands, and as he carved each intricate detail of who we are knew what we would do, yet he breathed life into us and loved. He could have decided that everything was perfect before Adam. But he loved us so, he made us.
As our father, God had to do something for us. He loved us so he had to rescue us. By no means did we deserve this kind of love. Most of us if we were betrayed at even a fraction of the level that we betrayed God would stop loving, yet he continued. From the moment God decided that he would love us he knew what that would cost him. Jesus was the price for love.
If God being the loving father that he is, wanted to restore full relationship with us than a sacrifice had to be made. One that could be given without question. God's love for us spurned grace.
God in love could have chosen to give us only what we deserve. Which as time passed for many of us was less and less. The majority of us right now if not all of us only deserve hell. But God is so full of love that he gave us grace, what we did not deserve, and made a way for us to come home.