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Grace Hangs Around
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
– Matthew 11:28
Some of us grew up fairly comfortable for the most part. What I mean by that is that life in general was left unchallenged because of where, when, and to whom we were born. We didn’t choose a time and place in history complete with running water, ample food on the table, a safe place to sleep, or a set of clean clothes. We never wondered if there would be presents under the tree or if we would have decent back to school shoes. Someone was there to pick us up from soccer practice, get us to the dentist, and help with pre-algebra homework. These and countless other luxuries were awaiting us even as we were in our mother’s wombs.
We had enough money, good health, decent family, and a sense of belonging; these are all wonderful gifts that are to be cherished, not despised. At the same time, these gifts come with a unique spiritual price tag. Those of us who enjoyed these basic necessities of life must understand that living fairly carefree can establish a profound distance between the Man of Sorrows who had no place to lay his head and us out in a safe suburb. Convenience and comfortability tend to cause a lag in our response to the command of Jesus to come and receive rest. We think to ourselves, “We’ll get around to Jesus some other day when he and his rest are actually ‘needed.’ Besides, grace will hang around because that’s just what it does.” And you know what? We’re right. Grace hangs around.
Indeed, that day eventually comes for all of us. Nobody can be for sure when, but when it does, you are as sober as a 16 year old getting her driver’s license. You see, given enough time, the winds of life keep beating on the ship day and night until we finally find ourselves saying, “My God. This life is so hard. I feel so lost, so confused, so defeated.”
A death. A divorce. A broken relationship. A grief as big as the ocean itself. It’s in the hospital room at 2:00 AM or on the living room couch with your face buried deep in your hands; accompanied by your friends sitting there as helpless as you are hopeless. In that moment, you say to yourself, “This has to be a dream. I just know that I’m going to wake up any minute.” But the minute never comes. You never wake up from the nightmare because you never fell asleep. That pain is now going to be part of the rest of your story. Surely it will not be the only part of your story this sadness, this grief, this loss are always going to be present in one sense or another. It is then and there that we discover just how fragile we really are. Yes, that moment reveals to us what our souls really are and what we, as people, really need.
And yet, the reckoning doesn’t have to be as dramatic as death, grief, betrayal, and loss. It can also sneak up in the daily humdrum of life. Sometimes it happens when you’re waiting on the bus. Other times it is while washing the dishes on a Thursday night. It happens on Saturday mornings before the phone starts ringing and the day gets going. The coffee is brewing and you give yourself a moment to just stare out the window for no particular reason. When you come to yourself, you wonder just how long you’ve been there all glassy-eyed and zombie-like. When you come to yourself you realize that the long stare was accompanied by a memory—something feels this out of place. Someone special is missing. Life didn’t take the shape you thought it would. Time is moving too fast.
As those moments come for each of us the gap is closed between people, the playing field is completely leveled, and we all – rich, poor, black, white, famous, ordinary priests and irreligious all find ourselves in tremendous need. Deep down, our souls are squirming in their chairs like fidgety kindergarteners. We grow more frustrated, irritable anxious, and exhausted by the hour. In our constant jumping from headline to headline, meeting to meeting, worry to worry goal to goal without slowing down and appreciating a sunrise or a good belly laugh with our friends - we develop a low-level rage or sadness that lingers just beneath the surface. Given enough time, we end up snapping at our spouse, our child, a coworker, a friend, or even a total stranger. Somehow we end up content to just to just keep running on caffeine, nicotine, and sugar until those things no longer do the trick.
Then, when the light hits just right, those sacred, humble, bone-crushing and soul-restoring words of Jesus come piercing through; shining, sparkling, twinkling like a Christmas tree –”Come to me.” Those words of the Holy Stranger in the dark are suddenly transfigured into the words of your Closest Friend; God’s beloved Son is talking straight to you… and for some reason unbeknownst to you, you can hear him.
As Jesus issues the command “Come to me”; You have to really be paying attention if you’re going hear him. He’s not going to shout over the television, zap your phone, or ask your friend to leave in order to have you look his way. After all, grace hangs around.
When Jesus says “Come to Me and I will give you rest”, you’ve got to make sure not to confuse the Jesus of Scripture with the carnival Jesus that gets paraded around in popular evangelicalism today. The Son of God is not an entertainer. He is not selling snake oil. He is not performing magic tricks to wow the crowd. Jesus offers your soul rest is not looking for employees to hire or fans to help stoke is low self-esteem. He’s neither needy nor a show off. See him for who he really is. Listen to what the Scriptures actually have to say about him. Let him speak for himself. Banish the false images that you collected along the way from a parent, a teacher, or someone else that distorted his smile. the king of Israel and Savior of the world is not a grump. I repeat: Jesus is not a grump.
Don’t waste time dillydallying around with theological precision, humming another song, or endless religious activity! The only thing Jesus insists on is coming straight to him.
What does it look like to come boldly before the throne of grace? I, for sure, don’t have it all figured out but what I have learned in my 40 years in the Church is that Jesus has a strong distaste for religious pretense. The flowery rhetoric, church clothes, and petty bashfulness doesn’t pull the wool over his eyes. He resists our desire to pretend to be better than we really are. He sees the skeletons in the closet, all the wrong turns we’ve made, and still issues the call to “come to him.” When we posture ourselves as either too good or too bad for his grace, we reveal that we’ve lost touch with who we really are and we don’t know Who we’re dealing with. The lamb of God did not and does not flinch.
If you’re going to come to Jesus, then you’ve got to be willing to bring your whole self.
Coming to Jesus is as hard as telling the whole truth about the worst thing you’ve ever done. Coming to Jesus is as difficult as admitting to someone else that what was done to you actually happened. Coming to Jesus requires the fearless resolve of a five year old to get out of the bed and shut the closet door on the monster that lurks in the dark between the hangers. Coming to Jesus is serious business because your soul is no laughing matter.
To come boldly before the throne of grace takes real faith, real courage, and real vulnerability. More than that, it takes resolve to cling to what Scripture says about how God feels about you and all that he’s done to make things right between you and Him. Once you’re there, in the Presence, he will not give you a job assignment, a lecture about how screwed up you are, or a snake. The prophet Isaiah says that the smoldering wick that is your life, he will not snuff out. The bruised reed that is your heart, he will not break. Jesus, He will give your soul the rest it has needed all along. If Good Friday teaches us anything; its this – grace hangs around.
Amen.
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