paravanes:meditations

How does God, as expressed in the life and work of Jesus Christ, save us by grace? Among other things, God never looks away from us. God never turns from us. God gazes upon us, but not with anger or resentment for our failures. God gazes upon us with love, with mercy, with compassion. God holds out to us the offer of an honest, reliable path that will allow us to move from failure to fantastic, from brokenness to full healing and wholeness, from disconnection and confusion to loving community and clarity. This offer of true life is open now. It's available now, in this very moment. Today is always the most important day. It is now that God's offer of whole life is extended to all people. Knowing this is the beginning of knowing God's grace.

Sodom. This is not a name we generally associate with mercy. In Genesis 18:23-33, one reads a conversation between Abraham and God. God decides to share with Abraham the divine plan to destroy the city of Sodom because extreme wickedness has been attributed to the inhabitants of that place. In response, Abraham wonders aloud if God would destroy the good and honest people who just happen to live in Sodom.  In the conversation, Abraham asks the question: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" As the conversation progresses, God tells Abraham if fifty righteous people can be found in Sodom, the city will not be destroyed. Abraham, knowing his nephew Lot lives there, bargains God down to ten. That was an expression of God's mercy. In other words, if ten righteous people could be found in the city (historians estimate the population of the city was between 600 and 1200), God  would not destroy it. For the sake of ten righteous people, God would a...