Brown's Daily Word 1/17/15

    Praise the Lord for this Saturday.  Saturday is the Sabbath in the Jewish world.  In the Christian calender we are waiting for the Lord's Day, Sunday, Little Easter,  tomorrow.  We had some fresh snow fall yesterday.  Alice and I walked in the crisp, fresh snow for quite some time.  It was refreshing and cleansing in some way.    

    We will meet for worship tomorrow at 8:30 and 11:00 at Union Center and for Sunday School at 9:50.  We will meet at 9:30AM for worship at Wesley.  Beginning next Sunday, January 25, there will be a single service at 10:15 at Union Center and Sunday school will meet at 9:00.

    As we live in the afterglow of Christmas and Epiphany, I am reflecting on the efficacy of the Christ of Christmas in our world, in our hearts and in our lives.  It is written, "For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men, training us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world, awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our  great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.  Titus 2:11-14.  Grace has appeared, indeed. 

    “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.”  “Our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” 

    John Bunyan wrote, “O Son of God, grace was in all thy tears; grace came bubbling out of thy side with thy blood; grace came forth with every word of thy sweet mouth; grace came out where the whip smote thee, where the thorns pricked thee, where the nails and spear pierced thee.   blessed Son of God, here is grace indeed!  Unsearchable riches of grace!  Unthought-of riches of grace!  Grace to make the angels wonder, grace to make the sinners happy.”

    With his wonderful sanctified imagination, C.S. Lewis wrote about a bus that was leaving hell to take a tour of heaven.  While riding through the streets of gold, one of the guys in the bus saw an old friend walking through the streets of gold, and all of a sudden he jumped up and starts yelling, “It’s not fair, it’s not fair, he was a sinner all his life, it’s not fair.  I want justice, I want justice.”  One of the people walking through the streets of gold turned to his neighbor and said, “Poor guy.  He doesn’t know that we’re not here because justice has been imparted to us.  We are here because we have been given grace.”

    Some say that God’s grace is a New Testament development.  Yet, if we look closely, we see that in fact God has been pouring his grace upon humankind since Genesis 3, when God did not strike Adam and Eve on the spot, but let them live. That was grace.  After David sinned with Bathsheba and killed her husband, he prayed for grace and penned the words that have been teaching sinners to pray for millennia, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.  Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.”  God forgave David’s sins, and that is grace.

    The story of Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 9 is a beautiful story of grace.  After David became king over Israel he asked, “Is there no one still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show God’s kindness?”  The Ancient Near Eastern culture would dictate that he kill everyone in Saul’s family.  David found out that there is one man, Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son, who was crippled in both feet.  “Where is he?” David asked.  “He is in Lo Debar.”  Lo Debar can mean: No word, no thing, or no place.  Mephibosheth had nothing going for him.  He was in “no man’s land.” 

    David said to Mephibosheth, “Don’t be afraid for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan.  I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.”  I am  touched  by Mephibosheth’s response.  “What is your servant that you should notice a dead dog like me?”  Yet, he experienced GRACE, because the king came and told him, “Sit at the table anyway.” 

    I have been pondering on this word "Lo Debar"    Lo Debar is not a permanent place.  It is a waiting place.  How long can we  wait?  Many of us  are waiting in Lo Debar.  I am reminded that King Jesus, our Lord, knows where we are.  Even Lo Debar becomes the place of grace.  Jesus the epitome of grace ready to pour grace upon us.  I love the story of Mephibosheth because his story is my story.  His story is your story.  Often sin cripples us and we become lame.  We are lame in our talk (we stutter, we have an accent); lame in our motives (we do the right thing for the wrong reason); and yet Jesus our King says to us, “Sit at My table anyway.”  That’s grace.  One day we will sit at the King’s table, and our feet will be crippled no more, because he will make all things new.  May we all who have received grace upon grace because of Jesus, live our lives this new year, maybe in this new season of our lives, propelled by grace of Jesus in such way that the people that we interact with, people that the Lord brings into our hearts and lives, may taste the GRACE OF JESUS.  

    The grace of the Lord teaches us, “To live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age.”  In his book, "Paul and the Law", Frank Thielman of Beeson Divinity School, under  whom spent I few summer Schools in Birminham Alabama, writes, “Paul can even say that a primary result of salvation is that people might ‘live sober, righteous and pious lives in this present time.’”  So Help us Jesus. 

In Christ,

 Brown

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