Treasures of grace...

Arrrr! I have returned with great fortunes from the St Jude's expedition to seek the legendary treasures of grace! With the delightfully dysarthric purple-headed Pirate Pete as our guide, we set sail (along the Western Highway) for that land-girt island of Ballarat, where the St Jude's Passion Convention was held this year.

We were blessed with a wonderfully entertaining speaker in Rob Forsyth, bishop of that far-flung, outer-outer suburb of Melbourne they call South Sydney. Amid jibes along the lines of "they held the Commonwealth Games down here? Really? Oh, I hadn't heard", the cheeky outer-suburbs man had a great message to share, preaching from various passages in the Bible on "grace", in particular God's immense grace, His gift, embodied by the Son, Jesus Christ.

What is grace, but the free gift of life from our Creator, at once so immense and profound, yet so simple that children have but to merely hear to grasp it? God's grace is lavish, a gift of mercy and love that bestows power on the incapable, and is at once the power of our God, from the beginning to the end, and fulfilled in Christ.

It is important to grasp what this means, and Christ is indeed the centre of it all. Whereas man is sinful in his ways, God's righteous character will never allow Him to acquit the guilty - all humanity have sinned and fallen short of the grace of God, and in our natural state, we all stand condemned and have no right to the life given us. However, God's character is twofold - on one side is righteousness and truth, on the other facet is love and mercy. John puts this as "grace and truth" (John 1:14), and this paradox is more extensively proclaimed in Exodus 34:5-8.

So how are these reconciled? Does God forgive us and simply forget our sin? And if God forgives, does this mean that all our wrongdoing is of no consequence? By no means - God forgives, but it is only possible because, in the words of J. I. Packer, "Jesus Christ endured, exhausted the destructive, divine judgement for which we would otherwise have been inescapably destined"! Christ died for us because God loves us!

It's worth a pause here... The treasures we have thus uncovered are amazing, wouldn't you agree? Near the convention centre was Mt Buninyong, an extinct volcano peaking at 719 metres and with a lookout tower on top offering views of the valleys and hills around (no cityscape or anything busy like that, only rolling hills and spot fires at occasional intervals - apparently in the country, people like to light fires). The crater is not at the peak - rather it is a neat bowl-shaped formation in the side of the mountain, a convenient detour off the beaten path. Someone smart had brought a soccer ball and a frisbee, and we played in the crater, strangely unfazed by the thought that, should the volcano wake up, we would be obliterated. At least we are all confident of where we would go from there! The mountain, though, makes for a nice view in all directions - and some have set up home on the slopes, raising livestock, horses, and all manner of other introduced creatures, amid the native landscape and wildlife.


Back to convention - so what then of grace? What are the outworkings of God's grace? If we are declared righteous (in one fell swoop, we are already justified by the death of Christ on Calvary's cross!), then why should we stop sinning? Paul poses this very question in Romans 6. "Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?" He immediately answers, "By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?" Thanks to the grace of our great God, we are a recreated person - we have a new identity in Christ! Our sin then is not from our new identity, but from our old ways, which we are to shed.

Rob poses the following analogy. Somewhere in the suburbs of Melbourne is the Condie Poison Gas Factory (for those who don't know, Richard Condie is the vicar of St Jude's), which produces all manner of colourless, odourless ammunition for nefarious criminals bent on destruction. They are true professionals, and have been responsible for terrorist attacks all around the world. Then, one day, for some very strange reason, the company is taken over. The board is completely scrapped and replaced, and it's now no longer the Condie Poison Gas Factory, but the Patrick Therapeutic Gases Factory (Tim Patrick is St Jude's youth minister!) - a completely new company, a completely new identity, with a mission to cure the world of all its diseases! However, the factory and shipping department are still sometimes putting out poison gases. How can this be? They are used to the old ways, old habits, and take time to change. So while the company is a completely new company, it is a matter of process before the old ways are replaced by new ways.

The new ways should look like our Lord, Jesus Christ. So grace is given to us, so grace is also worked out in us. Grace (Greek "charis") is translated in many other ways in the Bible - just take 2 Corinthians 8, for example. Charis is translated as "grace", "privilege", "generous undertaking", and "generous act" - all within the space of one chapter. So grace is given to us in Christ, so grace is also worked out in us through our new ways, which reflect Christ. It is not simply that which we receive, but that which we give - we are put in a position by God to give, to be generous, and this is also His grace.

Our God is amazing, yah? We are to receive His grace - and not be afraid to do so! His gift of grace is free, and it is the greatest gift we can receive. We might start out reluctant, but all we need to is "take, eat"! I will finish with this poem by George Herbert, entitled "Love", from "The Temple":

Love

"Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guiltie of dust and sinne.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack’d any thing.

A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkinde, ungratefull? Ah my deare,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?
My deare, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat."
-George Herbert (1633)