The Resistance to Grace

I think it is what got him killed. All this talk about grace, about forgiveness, about the amazing equality of God's love for all people. I think that is what got Jesus killed. As I was taught "grace" is defined as "an unmerited goodness." We have a lot of conversations about "what happens when bad things happen to good people" but I seldom hear conversations about grace which is "when good things happen to bad people."

As human beings in our culture we just have a horrible time with the idea that we are sinners. The evidence continues to come in that evil can be found in every home and in each person, but we just keep right on believing that we are nice, good people. Naturally, if we are good people, we deserve good things. So the whole concept of there being something good given to us that we do not deserve does not register. How many ads on t.v. and radio have you heard that says you need to get the "vacation" you "deserve," or that you get the body you deserve, or that you need the kind of legal defense that you are entitled to? I hear them all the time.

The corollary to our notion that we are good, nice, worthy people who deserve what we have is that there are a lot of others who are not like us. They are unworthy. They are the evil ones. They deserve to be punished. They deserve to be restricted and controlled. Thus to be told that they are going to be given the same gifts of acceptance and forgiveness seems to be an outrageous statement. How dare someone put "them" in the same group with "us." And the demand that we are supposed to want in our ethics for them the same gifts of forgiveness, acceptance, and love is just too absurd.

The gift of grace to us is not needed and offensive because it insinuates that we are not worthy of it. We want we what deserve. The gift of grace to others is so offensive because how dare God give to them what he is giving to us. It is no wonder that the preaching of grace and God's love and forgiveness never seems to attract a very large or sustained crowd. Yet it is the sweet sweet blessing to all who come to some profound crisis in life and see themselves as they really are. "O wretched man, that I am, who can deliver me from the power of darkness?" and there is a word that grace has already been offered to those who are ready to receive it.