God’s Risky Grace
A verse often quoted on Christmas cards is Galatians 4:4: But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son… I recently received a letter from a missionary couple that made some astute observations about this verse and God’s sense of “perfect timing. ” Here is an excerpt from that letter:
God’s timing in sending His Son to be born in this world would hardly have been the time we humans would have picked! An oppressive foreign government forced Joseph and Mary to leave their home when it was about time for Mary to give birth. When they arrived in Bethlehem and time for Mary’s labor, they couldn’t find a place to stay. Apparently they lacked even the birthing assistance common for that time as they had to make do with Jesus being born in a stable and then laid in a cow’s feeding box for His bed. . . With Jesus less than two years old, they had to leave Israel at a moment’s notice in the middle of the night to keep Herod from killing Jesus, and so the account goes on! Even Jesus’ fantastic teaching and healing ministry was cut short by His suffering an unjust, violent death at the prime of His life of 33 years.
Most of us by nature are risk-averse. When it comes to the plan of redemption, that means we probably would have never sent Jesus into this dark world. If we had, we might have sent Jesus back in King David’s day, when he could have been protected by a good and powerful king.
Apparently God knows that love and grace are by nature risky propositions. No risk = no love/no grace. Which brings me to my point.
The darkness does not have to do much to win the culture war of the next generation. All it has to do is get the male of THIS generation to abdicate. To abandon spiritual leadership. To become risk-averse in the name of comfort and security.
The stereotypical Christian male isn’t as likely to abdicate, but he does become risk-averse. He settles for being the beast of burden. He goes out, works, and provides. He comes in from his burden and settles at the troth of the dinner table, the TV, and the computer. The next day he maintains his faithful ox-like drudgery and does it all again. There is a quiet nobility in this. As the Pink Floyd song says, “Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.” Inwardly the man yearns for something more but he sticks to his task because he sees no truly GOOD option.
He settles. Eventually his kids are grown up, his wife is bored, he is bored, and he wonders why his kids never call. In a few cases, he may seek to soothe his boredom by pursuing extreme sports or the destructive risks of the “mid-life crisis.” So, he may take somewhat empty risks, but he will not take NOBLE risks.
He won’t go serve in a soup kitchen.
He won’t adopt one of the millions of orphans in the world.
He won’t take his son with him on a missions trip to a third world country.
Instead, he settles. He simply wants to go quietly out to his well planned, self-absorbed retirement pasture.
He is not a noble stallion. He is not Jesus of Nazareth.
He is a dependable gelding. He is Nicodemus in John 3. He is a good, decent, religious man. But he COULD be the Nicodemus of John 7:45-52 and John 19:38-42. He COULD accomplish so much for God’s kingdom. He COULD take a stand for Jesus.
But that would require personal risk.
Be a man of grace.
Take a noble risk.
In Christ,
Pastor Conrad