This morning I preached on Mark 5 which covers the grace and mercy Jesus showed to three people...the demon possessed man, a woman who had a blood disease for 12 years, and to the father of a dead 12 year old little girl.
As I was preaching, I was wondering how relatable the whole thing was. How is grace relatable? I thought...surely there is something I can tell people "to do." Surely it is not as simple as grace. There has to be limits and conditions to grace, right? Even though practically all of our songs are about the love, mercy, grace, forgiveness and our sufficiency in Christ alone...certainly in the "real world" that is just not the way it works.
Maybe that is because grace comes from another world. To add the descriptors, "limitless" and "unconditional" to the word grace is redundant because the grace of God, by theological definition, is already those things. Thankfully for all of us, God's grace doesn't have a ceiling.
After I greet people at the door after church, I usually have a question/answer/hang out time back in our conference room...today I believe God sent me three people (one on the way to the room, and two in the room)...a precious woman whose daughter is serving a life sentence in prison, an older woman who has all kinds of health problems, including a blood disorder, she has spent all her money, and regardless of all the help that many at church and doctors have been to her, she is basically destitute and hopeless, and a father who buried his little girl last week. It was uncanny how God dramatized my sermon right before my eyes.
I can pray with them, I can listen to them, I can speak encouragement into their lives, I can be there for them, I can marvel at their moments of joy and strength, but like the three in Mark 5, their only real, tangible and lasting hope is the grace of God in Jesus.
It sounds esoteric and impractical to say that...how does grace help a parent whose child is in prison? It doesn't get the child out of prison. It doesn't give them Thanksgiving dinners together or give them grand-children. How does grace help a lonely older woman who can't catch a break? People can help out but it is never really enough to soothe the pain and fear that can come with older age...it gets worse not better. What does grace have to do with a parent who has lost a child? Parents aren't supposed to bury their children and the pain doesn't end. How does grace help in that situation? In fact, how does preaching Jesus help in these real life situations?
Perhaps the healings of Mark 5 are a taste of what is to come in Heaven. The woman's tormented daughter will be free of her prison, the older sickly woman, who just can't find her way, will be whole again, and the Daddy will be reunited with his little girl. One day. Jesus brought Heaven to Earth for a time. The Kingdom of Heaven broke in to this world and he "healed them all." (Matthew 12: 15).
I am reminded of Question 1 from the Heidelberg Catechism...
What is your only comfort in life and death?
That I, with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who with his precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, wherefore by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me heartily willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.
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