Hello,
I live out in the country and so I get a lot of country sights….deer, groundhogs, turkeys, vultures, hawks, crows, and colorful song birds. But this past Friday, I saw a country sight that I have never seen before.
My son, who was visiting from NYC, and I were sitting on my back patio, and as we were talking above us we spotted a large bird being chased by a couple of smaller birds. I had seen sights like this multiple times before, and so I assumed it was a vulture or hawk that had stirred the ire of these two followers. But my son said, “Hey, that’s a bald eagle.” And sure enough, as I looked more carefully it was clear to see the white head and white tailfeathers. I was unaware that bald eagles lived in our area of the country, but with my own eyes I can say that they obviously do. It was a wonderful and exciting sight to see.
Thing is, if my son had not been with me, I would not have noticed the white heat and white tailfeathers. As I said, I just assumed it was a sight that I had seen multiple times before. Thus proving a point that has been made many times before, sometimes it takes another set of eyes for us to see the things around us.
So common are the hawks, crows, and vultures that hover around our lives, that when something flies into our lives, we (at least I know that I) tend to assume the usual…another hawk, crow, or vulture. When someone speaks kindly, we wonder what they might want from us. When someone does something nice for us, we wonder what they expect in return. When someone is critical of us, we wonder what might come next. Not all the time, but certainly some of the time. I don’t think that I am alone. If there’s an adjective that seems to apply more and more to the world that we live in, it is “skeptical”. Truthfully, it would be naïve to not look at things with a somewhat skeptical eye, but it seems to me that the world we live in puts glasses of skepticism on us so that skepticism is all we can see.
That is why, I think, God’s grace is so hard to see. It is hard to see, in Jesus, one who comes into our lives with unconditional love because our eyes are skeptically spectacled. When Jesus says, “I love you. Period.”, we start look for a conditional comma. When Jesus says, “There is no sin beyond my forgiveness,” we see the things in us that we can’t forgive and start looking for the fine print in Jesus’ words. When Jesus says, “I will never give up on you, as a matter of fact I would leave 99 sheep to search for you until I find you,” we say, “What kind of fool would do that?” Don’t I have to do something do receive Jesus’ love - believe enough, do enough, be sorry enough, try enough? Skeptical spectacles make grace hard to see.
That is why we need another set of eyes, unskeptically spectacled. Someone who notices grace when they see it. I am thankful to a couple of specific professors in seminary who detected pure grace in Jesus’ words and deeds, and pointed it out to me. And I hope that I can do the same for others in this grace skeptical world. Every time I step into the pulpit, I hope that I can help people see God’s grace in Jesus. Every time that I send out a Bungee Cord, I hope that it helps you detect God’s grace in Jesus.
Jesus died and rose for you to enfold you in the eternal embrace of God. Grace. No conditions. No “if only”. No “except for”. I know that that is hard to believe, but thanks to my son’s set of eyes, I not only believe, but I know that bald eagles live near me.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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