Amazing grace!

Consider these words said by a widow at a recent church service: “Now I better understand Jesus’ words: ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do’ (Lke 23:34)”

These words embody grace. We’ll come back to them later.

Grace is central to  the Christian message. It separates Christianity from other world religions. The word is often on our lips and in our writings. A favourite song in many languages is ‘Amazing Grace’. We cannot understand Christianity without grace.

The origins of grace lie in the remarkable choice of God to save when the first humans spat in his face in that garden scene of rebellion against our maker. Grace is seen in his divine choice to save and in what followed. Its culmination is when God himself came to live as one of us. Jesus lived the life we should live and died the death we should die – he took the rap for us. His life and death are our substitute and were done for all who believe. As he put it: ‘the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost (Lke 19:10)

Those who have been embraced by that grace and who have responded with faith in Jesus are called to pay forward that divine grace.

Now back to the church service and the widow’s remark.

A few days earlier her husband had been killed and the family home destroyed by fire. Their son has been arrested and faces charge of murder, arson and more. This wife and mother is left destitute and devastated. Over the church morning tea people sat in a circle and shared memories of her husband. At one point she said’ let’s not forget the elephant in the room’ and went on to speak of her son’s struggle with mental illness.  Then came her words about better understanding Jesus’ saying from the Cross.

That is grace begetting grace. There is the love from Christ prompting the love of Christ towards the undeserving. There is ‘.. we love because he first loved us’ (1 Jn 4:10).

Human grace does not come easy in such circumstances. Ultimately it comes because we are entranced, captivated and transformed by the grace of God the Father, embodied in his Son and applied to us by their Spirit.

Let us be amazed by his grace and let us show amazing grace.