The morning drive in to work was routine. I had waited past rush hour, doing my email updates and busy work in the office at home. The traffic wasn’t bad. As I was driving in, I noticed the top of a bald head ringed with white hair in the fast lane. As I overtook this Buick LaSabre, I also saw white curly hair peaking above the passenger’s head rest as well. “An elderly couple out for their morning errands,” I thought to myself. “How sweet!”

    The LaSabre was traveling just below the speed limit, so I gradually overtook them and passed them. As I did, I glanced over at the “couple” to get a better look. When I did, I immediately had to take a second look. My mind couldn’t process what my eyes were seeing. Instead of a sweet little curly white-haired lady riding in the passenger’s seat, I saw a big poodle with white curly hair, a wet nose, and a bobbing pink tongue.

    It was a surprise; I thought I already knew it was a little old lady in the car next to her husband. It was quite a start and a good chuckle. After I passed the Buick, the car suddenly sped way up and passed me. I got another second look and another chuckle at my newly discovered white-haired couple out for their morning drive.

    We get so used to seeing what we have seen, that we are often surprised when our expectations are contradicted with something new. Grace is much that way for religious folk. Grace is the surprise passenger of religion when it comes to Christianity. No other religion has it, at least not in any sense like Christianity does. Laws, ethics, morals, commitment, striving to be good and decent, loyalty, worship are all qualities and activities of most religions seeking to make humans better people. People try to do better and be better so their god, gods, or goddesses will approve of them and bless them with what they need. If humans work harder, strive more earnestly, and are committed more completely, they can make something better of themselves and then maybe their god will approve of them — that’s pretty much the religious view of righteousness.

...many that claim to be Christian have never really taken a second look at grace.

    Unfortunately, so many that claim to be Christian have never really taken a second look at grace. They accept that the common religious way of thinking is Christian. They just whiz by, expecting Christianity to be another religion demanding people do good things and to abstain from bad things. When they suddenly see Grace riding in the passenger seat of Christian faith, they don’t take a second look. They just make Grace into something it is not. Christianity becomes watered down and loses its great surprise and incredible wonder because it is made into just another religion — it’s only different because it has a better hero (Jesus) and because it is the religion with which we are most familiar. How tragic! God’s grace given to us in Jesus Christ and received by entrusting our lives to that grace is liberating and exilirating! To miss the heart of the Gospel and reduce Christian faith into another religion that depends on our perfection is tragic.

    So this week, I’d like to ask you to take a second look at grace. To understand that God’s grace to us in Jesus is what sets Christianity apart from religion. We are not trying to be good enough to be accepted by God. God has already bridged the chasm between his holiness and our failure with the sacrifice of his Son for our sins. We are not saved because we became better by adhering to a bunch of new rules better than other folks adhere to their rules; instead, we are saved because we trusted that through Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, God has re-made us into his prized children. As we wait for the day he brings us home, we are being transformed to become more and more what he loves for us to be. The power of grace resides in two of God’s incredible gifts. One is Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins to pay the penalty of death for our failures. The other is the gift of the Holy Spirit to empower us to do and to be what no law or religion could help us be — children of God.

    So, the next time you are on your way to church or Bible study or a small group meeting, take a look at what rides in the passenger side of Christian faith: it is God’s incredible and surprising grace. It’s worth your second look!

 

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Title: "A Second Look"
Author: Phil Ware
Publication Date: November 18, 2002