As I prepare to preach this coming Sunday, I have become overwhelmed with the idea of grace. Grace is incredible, its unimaginable, its so magnificent that it become indescribable. Why the Creator of everything seen and unseen would come to earth in flesh form is just mind boggling. Not only that, but he lived a life entirely devoted to his death. As the old hymn says, “Who died to bring eternal life and lived that death may die.” I have always struggled with grace because it didn’t leave anything up to me. There is nothing I can do to earn more grace and there is nothing I can do to nullify the grace I’ve been given.
While I was with my students at a camp this summer the pastor told a story that he had read in a book about Christianity written by a Muslim. (The pastor was born into a Muslim family and came to Christ as a teenager.) The author said that Christianity seemed so odd to him because he pictured it as him sitting on a dock when a man runs past him telling him that he loves him and then jumps into the water and drowns. The man was Jesus, coming and dying to show his love for the man. The man had a point, if this was in fact an accurate depiction, Christianity would be absurd. But, what he missed is that we aren’t sitting on the deck. We are drowning and Jesus, out of love, drowned in order to save us. That is grace.
Hosea is an incredible picture of this grace for us to look at. He took a whore as a wife and loved her, even had children with her. She left him and he went to the slave blocks and bought her with a price. A woman who showed no desire to be with him and he went and bought her for a price. It’s a beautiful picture of Christ. Christ wants us so badly that he was willing to pay the price regardless of how much that was, even if that price is death, death on a cross.
unimaginablegrace 