Living Deeply

Grace or Self-Effort? (Sam Radford)

The ‘be better’ gospel leads to striving and shifts us away from the Gospel of grace. What might begin as an attempt to feel like a better Christian ourselves soon becomes an attempt to feel like a better Christian before others. And then, ultimately, it leads to our attempting to impress God by how much better we are.

Salvation is not and never will be by our good works. Nothing we can do will ever change God's acceptance of us. Nothing we can do will ever change the way God feels about us. He loves us as we are.

A Flash of Grace In A Life of Adversity (Petru Dumitriu)

Since about my thirtieth year, and more and more clearly as the years go by, and despite intervals of sterility caused by suffering, bad luck, drunkenness, over-eating, sluggishness of soul, lassitude of heart:  suddenly, in the midst of anguish or distress, it is there:  gratitude.  The response to my often unconscious but tireless interior allocution---continued probably during sleep also; the response which is not inspiration or idea or anything else but this, wholly, simply, uniquely:  gratitude. . . .

Last year, I found myself stopping halfway down the stairs, one foot on one step, the other on the next.  This month, I found myself, and above all was found by joy, in the act of taking off my spectacles.  The time it takes for the hand to be lowered, with the spectacle in the finer:  and that was when the grace of gratitude welled up within me, interflowing with the response I was seeking . . .

My own humble experience is not that of ecstasy.  I do not levitate, I am not transported, I am not somewhere else, nor outside myself, nor with God---nothing of that.  Just a poor brute suddenly stopping halfway down the stairs, or slowly taking off his glasses.  But those two or three minutes in the life of a man, are the reason why I shall not have lived in vain.

God Looks Through Sin and Evil (Kathleen Norris)

God can look right through whatever evil we have done in our lives and get to the creature made in the divine image.  I suspect that only God and well-loved infants can see this way.  Peter denied Jesus, and Saul persecuted the early Christians, but God could see the apostles they would become.  Maybe that’s why we worship—to respond to this grace.  We praise God not to celebrate our own faith but to give thanks for the faith that God has in us and in others.

Amazing Grace (Jessye Norman, Soprano)

Bill Moyers' documentary film on the hymn "Amazing Grace" includes a scene filmed in Wembley Stadium in London. Various musical groups, mostly rock bands, had gathered together in celebration of the changes in South Africa, and for some reason the promoters scheduled an opera singer, Jessye Norman, as the closing act.

The film cuts back and forth between scenes of the unruly crowd in the stadium and Jessye Norman being interviewed. For twelve hours groups like Guns 'n' Roses have blasted the crowd through banks of speakers, riling up fans already high on booze and dope. The crowd yells for more curtain calls, and the rock groups oblige. Meanwhile, Jessye Norman sits in her dressing room discussing "Amazing Grace" with Moyers. Finally, the time comes for her to sing. A single circle of light follows Norman, a majestic African-American woman wearing a flowing African dashiki, as she strolls on stage. No backup band, no musical instruments, just Jessye. The crowd stirs, restless. Few recognize the opera diva. A voice yells for more Guns 'n' Roses. Others take up the cry. The scene is getting ugly. Alone, a capella, Jessye Norman begins to sing, very slowly:

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.

A remarkable thing happens in Wembley Stadium that night. Seventy-thousand raucous fans fall silent before her aria of grace. By the time Norman reaches the second verse,

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears relieved. . .,"

the soprano has the crowd in her hands. By the time she reaches the third verse, "'Tis grace has brought me safe this far, And grace will lead me home," several thousand fans are singing along, digging far back in nearly lost memories for words they heard long ago.

When we've been there ten thousand years,

Bright shining as the sun

We've no less days to sing God's praise

Than when we first begun.

Jessye Norman later confessed she had no idea what power descended on Wembley Stadium that night. I think I know. The world thirsts for grace. When grace descends, the world falls silent before it.

From Philip Yancey's What's So Amazing about Grace?