As we continue our journey through Lent each Sunday, we have been looking at one aspect of God’s grace. Today we will look at the majesty of God’s grace.
The word majesty is one we don’t use very often anymore. But it’s one that describes a particular attribute of something of great value or of significant importance. One of the easiest examples of where this word is still used is in countries that still have royalty. One of the best examples of those would be the United Kingdom. Whenever referring to the reigning monarch the honorific used is “your Majesty”. This denotes recognition of the station and honor belonging to the person to which you are referring.
I’ve always found it peculiar that you say “your Majesty” and not “my Majesty.” The reason is, that as the speaker, we are referring to the dignity of the person we’re speaking to. That person holds a higher dignity, at least as it relates to protocol and decorum than the person referring to them. It is an acknowledgment of that person’s office in relation to others.
This earthly example of majesty can be helpful for at least two reasons. First, it gives us a point of reference about how we relate to those who have been given or afforded a particular form of dignity. As an American, the idea of royalty is not a part of my regular life. It is a foreign concept and social relationship.
God’s grace is majestic and worthy of our acknowledgment of it because we are not worthy of having been recipients of it.
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Second, it reminds us that if there are earthly forms of majesty there are also spiritual forms of it as well. This analogy is not perfect. And it doesn’t have to be. The fact it exists in the world can help us understand, at least in part, how it may work in our relationship with God.
When we talk about God’s grace, there is within it an attribute that makes it majestic. God’s grace is majestic not just because God is the actor. God’s grace is majestic and worthy of our acknowledgment of it because we are not worthy of having been recipients of it.
Grace has been defined as unmerited favor. The idea is it is the reception of something we did not deserve. This is true. But grace is also something we could not earn. And because we did not deserve God’s grace and we cannot earn God’s grace we should acknowledge it with a greater sense of awe.
The word awe is the reaction we should have been something we cannot properly describe with human words captures our imagination. It is a feeling of being in the presence of something beautiful. And sometimes in the presence of someone greater than ourselves. Anyone who has ever met a childhood hero can understand what this means.
As we celebrate the grace of God today, and in particular the majesty of this grace, we should do all we can to never lose this understanding of what God’s grace is or what God’s grace means to us.
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