Writings: Glorious Grace

By: Dr. Gregory S. Neal

When I was growing up, I was always the baby of our family: I was the youngest of all the grand and great grandkids, and while our family was large and spread out, we were knit together by our elders: by Granddaddy Neal and Great Aunt Lucy ... especially Lucy, who was an incredible woman of great physical and spiritual stature. When my grandfather was a child, he had trouble pronouncing her name – it came out “Oochy” or “Witchy” – and, so, Lucy quickly came to be called “Witchy” by the whole family, and Aunt Witchy by all her many nieces and nephews across several generations. Witchy was greatly loved by everybody: if you had a problem, you could always visit or call Aunt Witchy and share with her your fears, worries, and concerns; she would listen, give wise counsel and advice, and then she’d pray for you. Everyone agreed that Witchy had "a real way with the Lord," and that when she got done praying for you, you knew you had been prayed over. She was a person of amazing spiritual depth. I also mentioned that Witchy was a woman of great physical stature: while her mother was short – a tiny 4 foot 9 and as skinny as a rail – Witchy was 6 foot 1 and very stout, with long powerful arms with which she would enfold you in a hug. I can remember running up to her as a child, and she would stoop over and throw her arms around me, and I would vanish within her loving, caring embrace as she said "honey." Nothing bad could ever happen to you when Witchy was hugging you; indeed, her embrace quickly came to symbolize for me God’s never-failing, always ready-to-hold-you, love and grace.

What is grace? The church has lots of words that we use to talk about God: we talk about God’s glory, majesty, justice, mercy, forgiveness, faith, hope, and love. We think we know what we’re talking about when we use these words, and we often do, but what about grace? We talk about grace when we talk about God because it is through grace that we experience the presence of the Divine in our lives. Grace is God’s unearned, unmerited, undeserved and undeservable love and favor. There is nothing that we can do to earn God’s favor, nothing we can do to create or add to it; we simply receive it. Grace is God’s presence, acceptance, forgiveness, and self-giving / self-revealing nature. Everything we know about God comes to us because of God’s grace; even the law of Moses is rooted in grace, with Jesus identifying: “Love the Lord your God…” and “… love your neighbor as yourself” as being the first and second commandments.

In Ephesians, Paul writes about grace:

"In [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us." (Ephesians 1:7-8)

The riches of Christ’s grace have been lavished upon us, given to us without measure and without demand for payment, because we need it and because God loves us and desires us to have it. That word “lavished” is very emotive: it describes grace as being slathered on us, like a thick layer of anointing oil. The title “Messiah” in Hebrew, and “Christ” in Greek, means “anointed one.” Jesus is God’s anointed one, God’s love lavished upon us.

Do you know what the difference is between Justice, Mercy, and Grace? We all want to have all three, and they can similar in nature, but they are also very different.

• Justice is getting what you deserve. When you’re speeding down the highway, going 80 in a 65 mile-per-hour zone, and a Cop pulls you over and gives you a ticket: that’s Justice. You’re getting what you deserve.
• Mercy is NOT getting what you deserve. When you’re speeding on a residential road, going 50 in a 30 mile-per-hour zone, and a Cop pulls you over and gives you a warning: that’s Mercy. You’re NOT getting what you deserve.
• Grace is getting what you DON’T deserve. When you’re speeding through a School Zone, going 50 in that 20 mile-per-hour zone, and a Cop pulls you over and gives you a hundred dollars: that’s Grace. You’re getting what you do NOT deserve.