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From our Senior Pastor
Frederick Buechner is a Presbyterian minister who has written several devotional books. One that I particularly enjoy, and have been re-reading as of late, is called
Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC (Harper and Row
Publishers, © 1973.) In this book, he lays out explanations to some of the theological “jargon” we use in the
Church in a way that is approachable, and often humorous, but in
a way that causes one to think differently about things. In this
season of Lent, one thing on which we focus is God’s grace, shown to
us in the death and resurrection of Christ. I am taken by
Buechner’s definition of this term, and share it here with you:
GRACE
After centuries of handling and mishandling,
most religious words have become so shopworn nobody’s
much interested any more. Not so with grace,
for some reason. Mysteriously, even derivatives like gracious
and graceful
still have some of the bloom left.
Grace is something you can never get, but only
be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring
it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries
and cream, or earn good looks, or bring about your own birth.
A good sleep is grace, and so are good dreams.
Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace.
Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you
ever tried
to love somebody?
A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is
the assertion that people are saved by grace. There’s nothing
you
have to do. There’s nothing you have to do. There’s nothing you
have to do.
The grace of God means something like: Here is
your life. You might never have been, but you are
because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you. Here is
the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t
be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for
you I created the universe. I love you.
There’s only one catch. Like any other gift, the
gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and
take it.
Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a
gift too.
Wishing you a graceful, and grace filled life,
- Pastor Karl M. Richard
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