Every Sunday in Lent is considered a mini Easter and is therefore not counted among the days of Lent. During this time we should pause to celebrate the goodness of God as he brings us closer to himself and into a deeper understanding of the work of Christ in our lives.
Today we’re going to celebrate the Grace of God.
There are many misunderstandings and misconceptions about what the grace of God is. And I will not try to dispel all of them in this post. What I would like to do is consider what the ministry of Christ means for us if we accept Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection as God’s plan for our redemption.
For those of us who claim the name of Christ and have become followers of him, the greatest realization we can accept and celebrate is that God has done something for us that we cannot do for ourselves.
God has entered into the human condition and walked among us experiencing the fullness of the human experience so that we might know he understands what it is like to be one of us. The miracle of the incarnation is not only that God became like us. That in and of itself is truly glorious. The miracle of the incarnation is that God truly understands what it means to live in a world that is broken and drifting away from him.
God’s grace, as it is seen in the life and presence of Jesus upon the earth, is the proof of God’s glorious love for us.
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The weight of sin and the effects of spiritual brokenness upon men and women cannot always be fully understood. It is something we experience in unique ways because we are individual people. One of the challenges we face is recognizing that though we might experience similar events we do not always experience the same manifestation of emotions. What this means for us is we should not compare our experiences. We should just recognize how each experience shapes us into the people we are becoming.
Now, what does this have to do with God’s grace? That is a good question. And I would answer it in this way.
God’s grace, as it is seen in the life and presence of Jesus upon the earth, is the proof of God’s glorious love for us. That God would exit his perfect heaven and enter into our broken world so that we might have a relationship with him is worthy of celebration. The reality of God’s grace can sometimes escape us because we do not, or maybe we simply cannot fully appreciate the cost of Jesus entering into the world to God.
The Christian church has taught this idea, this doctrinal truth, from the very beginning. And so for those of us who have the benefit of centuries of theologians and divines speaking to it, Jesus’s entrance into the world feels as if this is something “normal”. But the truth of the matter is this is anything but normal. Anything God does is supernatural. And even though we accept as an axiom of faith the entrance of Jesus Christ into the world through the miracle of the incarnation, we should not lose sight of how truly glorious this reality is.
As we celebrate this first Sunday in Lent, I encourage you to take a moment, to pause and reflect on this wonderful reality that we have been gifted. In just a few short weeks we will remember the fullness of the sacrifice of Christ. But as we journey towards Resurrection Sunday, we should stop and rejoice at the goodness of God as it is seen in the grace of God.
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