Beauty for Ashes

Hello, my name is John and this is my new blog.  I wanted to make this a youtube vlog but taking 385 minutes to upload a 6 minute video is just silly- so here we are.

The goal of this blog will be more focused than my previous attempts in that I am going to merge two of my loves: faith and music together.  Also, this will be participatory because we are nothing if not a community.  I hope together we might discover more about our faiths and the faiths of those around us.

Week 1: Beauty for Ashes

http://youtu.be/clVVdlyD2bw

Beauty for ashes is a love song to God, recognizing his grace in a way that doesn’t make you feel like you’re being hit over the head with the fact that we are all sinners and that we need grace. It is a song that evokes the image of trading a sinful past for a holier present and the breaking dawn of the future. It does not promise that there will be no hardships and there is no guarantee that all problems will immediately vanish when you turn your life over to God like some magic Houdini.

I appreciate that about Shane & Shane. Their music is honest, good for the soul, and even bittersweet in its joy- a reflection of what the Christian life can be. Beauty for ashes can be for anyone and indeed, it should be.

The words of the song talk about delighting ourselves in the richest of fare. For me that means the delight isn’t just in the richness of the fare or the goodness of whatever the fare is, its about the fact that its undeserved. I’m sure you’ve heard that before, Christians talking about undeserved grace, but I want you to take a moment to think about that. To think about the grace of Jesus.

I know that not all of you have had good experiences with Christians. I can almost guarantee you that in certain parts of my life, I’ve been one of those people. But this isn’t about me, this is about the grace of Jesus, not the imperfect people that make up his church. The grace of Jesus is huge, there are books written on it-dissertations, sermons. But what does that grace mean to you? Not just in the way that Jesus has changed your life, but how have those experiences gone deeper and penetrated your heart?

In Matthew 11:30 , Jesus talks about his burden and his yoke. He talks about how easy and light they are and he was juxtaposing what his followers could expect (grace and mercy) with what the Pharisees of Israel in those times were offering-rules. Jesus, on the other hand, was offering a way to examine yourself and your heart, not just rules. The Pharisees had a hard time with grace, and Jesus certainly gave them more than some would say they deserved.

It could be argued that his burden isn’t always easy and his yoke isn’t always light but in those cases I think that is a result of putting a lot on ourselves, working ourselves to death for our own salvation and letting ourselves get bogged down in the rules, in Romans, in the great commission (not that those things are bad, mind you). But, at the end of the day, grace gets you much farther than rules. Because you can follow the ten commandments to the letter, but if your heart isn’t in it, then it doesn’t matter how much you follow thm

The Pharisees always followed the laws, but Jesus told them about their insides, the rat infestations and the empty tombs where their hearts used to lie. He was saddened and disgusted because he knew the Father and knew the Father’s grace and mercy and love for Israel were more than just phylacteries, tassels, and the Ark. Those were all symbols of what life could be, but, at the end of the day, the curtain of the temple wasn’t nearly strong enough to stand up to God’s love.

In the song, Shane and Shane also mirror God‘s delight back to him, thankful for receiving it and thankful for him. And God delights in the grace Jesus has provided you today, this minute. What does his grace mean to you? If you’re going through AA, is it because he’s helping you battle addiction? Did God’s grace give you the strength to leave a hard marriage or go back to university? How about leaving a job where your integrity slipped away or the grace to restart a friendship that you missed desperately?

Grace can mean so much and I think we often let grace slip away because the rules are easier, they can define us and tell us who the enemy is. They give us direction for bible studies, but the songs and the psalms and the strong emotions all come from grace, mercy, and love. Grace is the richest fare we can have and for me that fare is found in the ways I have come to join the community of faith.

It has not been easy for me, I am mistrustful of many Christian organizations and for a long time I had a really bad attitude about Bible studies and the great commission and I was just really haughty, really didn’t understand but thought I knew everything. I’m not saying its all perfect now, but giving myself the grace to be imperfect and realize these things about myself, as unflattering as they are, has also given me the grace of God in growing to embrace the real community of God- not necessarily the one I’ve made up in my head.

So after you think about the grace of God in your life, I want you to praise him for it- however you do that best- and it’s a pretty long list. It can involve various forms of art, spending time with the family you’ve been provided, or even something like jogging. Praising God for his grace should come through your personality- after all, that is why God made you special and unique.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t praise him for his grace enough. I don’t sing loud enough in church or dance around like I used to with reckless abandon. I don’t listen to the breeze enough. I don’t offer up enough of the best of me to my fellow humans who are just trying, scraping, hoping to get through this life as least scathed as possible. I certainly don’t want to make it any harder than it has to be.

And I think that not praising him for grace enough can be part of the stony heart that Shane and Shane sing about. In the story of the Prodigal son (Luke 15:11) the older son who didn’t run away had stone in his heart. He was angry about the grace that the father showed the younger son. I’ve felt like that, known entire congregations like that really. Aren’t there people in your congregation you have trouble getting along with? I can’t think of a single Mayberry congregation anywhere, though maybe in an underground church somewhere they get it. I don’t know. I’m not nearly oppressed enough to know.

Oddly enough, we never find out in the prodigal son how the father’s grace (bringing his dead son back to life) affects the older son and if his heart of stone chips away at all or if it becomes harder because he thinks his father is a fool or going senile because he didn’t make his younger son into a slave, like what might have been deemed prudent at the time. The oldest son, and rightly so- some would agree, probably thought some retribution was in order. But God’s not really looking to retribute anybody. He doesn’t want to judge as much as love and its something he wanted us to understand. Jesus says so when he addresses the two greatest commandments in Matthew 22:37-40:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. The second is to love your neighbor as yourself.

I’m not pretending that’s not a tall order to love your neighbor as yourself after somehow mastering loving God with all heart, soul, and mind, but maybe this week as a community, lets extend some of God’s grace to people out there. I think its hard enough in this world without us destroying each other and ripping each other to shreds. So your first assignment is grace. First, give it to yourself (because you fall short of glory- not because you‘re God), then thank God for the grace he has given you, and give others grace - even when they hate you. Especially give grace to that person that takes 21 items into the twelve item checkout line at Walmart.

Thanks for reading and remember to comment!  This is John (the Christian tiger)- signing off