Grace on Tuesdays

Grace on Tuesdays  30 April 2019

Do we do “justice” to grace? Close to its beginning, many a Christian worship service says something like, “I, a poor miserable sinner…” Perhaps much daily life and prayer begin the same way.
By contrast, Paul begins Philippians with “To all the saints in Christ.” Yes, he will address issues, as he must and we must, also in our worship and prayers. But “saints,” — loved by God — grace to you, and peace. “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” has some of that intention. Can we keep the priorities clear? It’s not God’s grace in the context of our sin; it’s us with our sin in the context of God’s grace: Saints!

April 23 at 10:53 PM · 

Grace on Tuesdays.
Better, I imagine, than a packed house for the big game, but all the fans are cheering for the same team. Passing through Moscow on my way to teach in Siberia, friends secured tickets for the Easter vigil service at the Patriarch’s Cathedral in Moscow. Yes, standing at the equivalent of box seats at the fifty yard line, it was gratifying to be so close to the action; but it was the “cheering” that is most memorable. Somewhere around ten thousand voices—filling and surrounding the cathedral—to each leader’s “Christ is arisen!” shouting back “He is risen indeed!” Whatever the struggles, this is the celebration that grace makes possible.

This is what grace sounds like when it’s almost Tuesday.

“Every time I attempt to handle my own guilt—by ignoring it, rationalizing it, or just running away from it—some unseen power or pressure from the depths of my being squeezes my life dry, leaving me empty.

But when I face up to my failures and confess them, when I open my guilt-ridden heart to You, … God, then I realize the blessed meaning of forgiveness.”

A rendition of part of Psalm 32 from Good Lord, Where are You? by Leslie Brandt

You probably know this already, that grace happens on more days than Tuesdays. It came home to roost—I came home to roost in it—last Thursday. The days had been hard, isolating, deeply so; you may have a sense of some of those. As I was writing in my journal it surprised me with a different end to a familiar verse. “In the valley of the shadow of _____________, I am withed.” Turns out “withed” is an actual English word with some other meaning; but the meaning that night was grace. The situation hadn’t changed, but I was not alone in it. Grace.

Frederick Buechner writes of a day he was out among some apple trees.  “Something other than what I expected did happen. Those apple branches knocked against each other, went clack-clack. No more. No less. “The dry clack-clack of the world’s tongue at the approach of the approach of splendor.” And just this is the substance of what I want to talk about: the clack-clack of my life. The occasional, obscure glimmering through of grace. . . .”

-Originally published in The Alphabet of Grace

“https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=rm#search/clack/WhctKJVJlwfsqxglwqldQQFqbsjVXMQkCLhFTZJnHWbqzGtdfSMNfrLwsfBblPFfQjjqwtQ”>retrieved 2 April 2019

A gift in Christ:  sometimes “the words of a psalm will strike with a physical impact:  tears come to my eyes, and I see myself and my life in a new light.  The moment passes, as it must, but when I feel both regret over my failings and the certitude that they need not define me, I am inspired anew to believe that not despair but hope will have the last word.”  Kathleen Norris, Acedia & Me, p 276

At a conference last Saturday on faith, business, and technology, two older men talked about these days walking slowly with their wives. One meant it literally, as his wife has some mobility issues. The other meant it metaphorically, slowing down from a hectic professional pace. You could sense in both an expression of affection, of deepening relationship.
This insight popped up: Jesus walking slowly with us. He who could zap his way across the cosmos in the twinkling of an eye walks with us, and at our pace! And then this: Immanuel, God with us. (Matt 1:23)

One other “chapter” on the conflict or contradiction I mentioned last Tuesday: some weeks back I read, “Oh, Lord, open my lips and my mouth shall show forth thy praise” (Psalm 51:15). I noted:
1. What a low point, tired. I can’t praise or even pray, except to depend on God to open my lips.
2. What a wonder and gift, God working in Christ, my lips open and I can praise Him.

I forget:  there are days when I am so aware of my lowliness, my deficits, the limitations.  Then words remind me.  “God promised to show mercy, …to set us free,…free to worship him without fear, holy and righteous in his sight” (Luke 1).   As low as I am, in Christ I get to be that, do that.  Good to remember.

Jesus is up on a hill with good friends, in all his glory—in all God’s glory (Luke 9:31, 34-35).  “Listen to him!”  What had Jesus talked about?  Going to that other hill where he would be alone, in all God’s abandonment of him; for us, for me.