scandal of grace 1

Imagine being raised in a world where your importance, your status in life is measured by how well you play by the rules. These rules, so stringent that even the most pious among your people struggle to live up to them.

Imagine watching those who delighted to make even more rules snubbed those who couldn’t live up to the standards they imposed, even refusing them an audience or access to the holy places of the culture. Labels like sinner, demon-possessed, heathen are thrown around with disregard for the person’s feelings.

Imagine all your life thinking that even if you wanted to know God that he is far from you and will remain so until you change who you are and become something you feel like you never will be. God is impersonal and distant to say the least. In the worst case scenario, he is following you around with a notebook, taking note of every infraction and every failure to live up to someone’s idea of who he is. Imagine.

Maybe it isn’t hard to imagine, because maybe that’s exactly how you feel, maybe that’s exactly where you are. Do you believe that Christianity is full of rules and regulations written by men who have no concern about who you are and what you deal with? Do you feel God is further from you than you could ever reach? And if you ever caught up with him, what do you think he would say to you? How would he respond? Would he turn away in disgust or would he be impressed with your spiritual prowess?

Imagine again, if you will, this world where rules of religion reign and those who make the rules reign even more supreme. Imagine a man coming into that culture and telling people that they do not have to live up to that standard anymore, but they already have been brought to that standard. Imagine him telling you that God is not distant, but present, right here—right now, with you and is not embarrassed by your failures or your struggles, in fact, he is proud that you even want to try to serve him. Imagine the responses of those who have staked their lives in this rule based society that has given them the power they wield over those who listen to their word.

It would be a scandal. And even so it is today…the scandal of grace.