Explosion of Grace

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound

that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost but now am found,

was blind but now I see.

 

The man who wrote Amazing Grace, according to the story, was a slave trader who suddenly awakened to the horrors of his life and fell to his knees in worship and repentance, vowing to give up his way of life altogether.  Yesterday I wrote that only grace, not conversation, can change the hardened heart. This is one example of man whose conversion would never had come about except for the amazing grace of God.

 

C.S. Lewis writes that we often think that if we are good, we will get a reward in the next life, and if we are not good, the other thing will happen.  But the reality is, according to Lewis, that with each choice we make, we slowly turn ourselves into the choices we make.  The person who complains always and everywhere about everything, turns the inner part of himself, the part that chooses, into a constant complainer, so that eventually, he loses himself -- his soul -- altogether and becomes the sin.

 

Unfortunately, the same can happen to a city (Sodom and Gomorrah), to a state, to a country, a nation.  We can become a society of warriors, a culture of bloodshed and revenge.  In the Book of Ezekiel, the Lord tells the nation of Israel that the king of Babylon will lay siege to Jerusalem because they have become a city of bloodshed (chapter 24):  "I have tried to cleanse you, but you would not be cleansed from your impurity....the time has come for me to act.  I will not hold back; I will not have pity, nor will I relent.  You will be judged according to your conduct and your actions..."

 

What happens when a person has turned himself into darkness, so deep that the light can no longer penetrate his soul?  What happens when we become the choices we have made, when the pot can no longer be cleaned?  Like the slave-trader, an explosion of grace must take place; the old man must die and a new man take his place.  This is what has been provided for us by the death of Jesus Christ, who became for us our old man, the man of sin.  He died, so we have died, if we are united with Him.  Then, he arose from the dead, no longer the man of sin, but a "new creation," the person created according to the Spirit of God.  As we sing in the second verse of Amazing Grace, "our chains are gone and now we're free" -- free from the 'old man' that had turned himself into sin itself.

 

Before Christ, in the Old Testament, the only remedy for a nation too far gone for repentance and turning back to God was death and resurrection of the nation.  The people who returned from captivity in Babylon had to rebuild the Temple and the city; now they were willing to listen to God and to put away their idols.  For us, individually, the cross of Christ has provided an explosion of grace that can instantly change us from Adam -- the old creation-- to Christ -- the New Man, the "Second Adam." 

 

For our nation, however, short of an explosion of grace that brings us to our knees, I fear that we must go through terror and destruction before we turn back to God.  A week or so ago, two groups gathered at the Texas State Legislature, where the legislators were debating a new bill that would prevent abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.  The pro-life group began to sing "Amazing Grace" as part of their demonstration; in response, the pro-choice group began to chant, "Hail Satan!"  Now if that does not tell us something, I don't know what will.  I am afraid we have made our choice as a nation of bloodshed.  What will turn us around?