The kingdom of grace and the world of ungrace – part 1

Like so many other New Zealanders I was shocked and disappointed at the recent revelations that ACT MP and “3 strikes” law campaigner David Garrett had used a dead baby’s birth certificate to get a false passport. It is disappointing when people in positions of influence are found to have ‘skeletons in their closet’. However what for me was most shocking was the self-righteous and venomous indignation of the media and general public baying for blood. It highlights for me what has elsewhere been described as ‘ungrace’.

I am not really interested in exploring whether or not it was the right thing for David Garrett to resign. In fact I am not really interested in the case per se except that it highlights the way the world works. In our world, we are judged for who we are and what we do. If we treat people nicely, they generally treat us nicely in return. If we treat people in a way that metaphorically burns bridges, we can lose friendships and alienate ourselves from others. If we do something stupid, that gives people the right to condemn us, and based on the magnitude of the folly, the right to dismiss us completely. This is the world of ungrace. And in a world of ungrace, people are very eager to put the boot in when someone is caught in wrongdoing.

Because we live in a world of ungrace we try to hide the real ‘us’ from those we come into contact with. We live in fear that our acquaintances and those closest to us might discover some of our own ‘skeletons’ and perhaps wipe their hands of us. We all know in the depths of our soul that if people could see the real us, they would find fault with much they saw. Indeed few of us have more than one person with whom we can be entirely honest about our true self. These true friends who love us in spite of our faults and flaws are rare and precious jewels, and their friendship mirrors the kind of friendship that God extends to people.

We cannot hide the real us from God. One of the occupational advantages of being God is omniscience. That means God sees the real us – our actions, our words, and scarily enough, the thoughts and motivations of our innermost self. He looks at each one of us warts and all, and still offers his love to us. This is an incredible truth. He sees our skeletons; the selfishness of our heart, the malice towards others, the deceit, and yes, even the stupid things we have done in our past, yet he still offers his friendship to us no strings attached.

What makes this offer even more gob-smacking, is that God’s grace to us comes at a great cost. For God to be just, he cannot allow the guilty to go unpunished. All of our obvious wrongdoings, and our less obvious closet skeletons must be paid for. They represent a relational block between us and God. This block cannot just be ignored. A husband who has cheated on his wife cannot just say to her ‘Let’s forget this ever happened’. But God has demonstrated great love for us, by finding a way to remove the block so that our wrongdoing before him and injustice towards others can be dealt with. God’s innocent son Jesus agreed to take the punishment that our wrongdoing deserved in order that God might look upon us as innocent. Jesus was nailed to a cross and forsaken by God as we deserved to be, in order that we who were once enemies of God might be made friends. The Bible poetically puts it this way; “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us.” Those who trust in Jesus are treated as if they had never done anything wrong. Nothing is allowed to get in the way of their friendship with God.

This is a most beautiful truth. God is a God of free grace. He does not require us to act in a certain way to receive his love. In him the world order of tit-for-tat ‘ungrace’ is slowly being dismantled. With Jesus a kingdom of grace broke into this world and the free offer of salvation from God’s just wrath has been offered through faith in him. His kingdom will gather in people from every tribe, every nation, and every language. And when he returns, we will celebrate God’s grace to us in a world removed of all sorrow and injustice.

Christian Extremism

I was reading a few blogs, and I was directed to this editorial in the Sunday Star Times.

What a distrubing editorial. As most of my readers will know, I am a follower of Jesus Christ - a Christian if you prefer. While I may be different from many New Zealanders, I suspect that like most I care deeply about this country. And so I was annoyed by the insinuations that this editorial made about Christians who have begun to actively promote the referendum on smacking. Consider the introductory paragraph with me.

The Right has found a heavy club to beat the government with: a referendum on smacking at the next election. This is a brilliant ploy by the religious extremists of Family First. It will gather not only libertarians, Act voters and other motley fanatics of that kind, but many decent and ordinary people. It is as though the Brethren had found a cause that appealed to the mainstream. The political and social effects are likely to be large and wholly malign.

Notice the words 'religious extremists.' Why does agreeing with over 80% of the New Zealand population on the smacking issue make one an extremist? Aren't people with religious convictions allowed to promote what they believe is right without being labelled as extremists? Are we supposed to lie down and let the government tell us how to live without attempting to play our part in the democratic process? Is democracy not intended for Christians?

Notice also that by implication 'Christians, libertarians, Act voters and other motley fanatics' are not decent and ordinary people. No - they are a separate category. Presumably they are indecent and peculiar people. But surely if many 'decent and ordinary' people are getting behind this referendum attempt - the cause in itself can't be all that bad. Just because the people out on the streets collecting signatures are Christians doesn't mean that the cause itself is somehow evil.

It saddens me that an intelligent journalist could have written such ill-thought comments. Like the Exclusive Brethren, Christians are being portrayed as social lepers. We are painted as people who can't be trusted; people who have a dangerous agenda. The reality? We're just normal people trying to follow Jesus in this world - trying to love God and our neighbour - failing often. But we're not the big bogey man.