Pastor Bob

Christian notions of grace are not about allowing exceptions.

God’s grace does not make exceptions to ‘the rule’, nor does it try to make exceptions themselves into ‘the rule’, and we do not imagine a God who just shrugs off or minimizes things that are wrong because of complexities or difficulties. That may be some human attempt at being nicer or sounding merciful, but it is the mere making of excuses when set next to the radical claims and power of divine grace.

Christian thinking does not look at wrongs and justify or minimize them because certain circumstances seem to leave no other options. We are not being kind when we shrug and excuse something because anything otherwise seemed impossible.

This world is broken and traps us in sin. When we face a situation that seems impossible to resolve, or is caught between two awful options, we have been trapped in sin. Humanistic notions of grace want to relieve the pressure because we can’t imagine what else a person could have done. That may even signal a heart of empathy. But we do not get to real and healing grace simply by naming mitigating factors and declaring exceptions that should change the standards in that case. Christian grace never pretends that something wrong was ok, even when the right seems impossible.

Even when trapped with no other options, the person you’re trying to care for is wrapped up in something wrong, or has directly done something wrong. When any person goes against the original design, no matter the reasons, the damage must be attended to and healed. Brushing the wrong or the failure off as an unavoidable mistake, or because the circumstances were worse or unfair, will leave that sin like a septic abscess leaking guilt and doubt into a person’s soul. Escapist kindness, in the long run, can indeed kill. Escapist, I say, because you’re not healing the other person; you’re trying to make them and yourself more comfortable because you can’t figure out what else they could have done either.

What you’re actually doing at that point is more like hospice care, trying to take pain out of a dying soul, than it is participating in real healing or the curing of a soul.

Those situations which seem so horribly unfair, in which we feel powerless to do what’s supposed to be right, whether because of context or even birth, do not excuse our sin. This world has been savaged. It is radically broken, and we are all inevitably trapped in that wreckage. The world is a collapsed building of blood and dust, and every human being is in the rubble trying to claw their way out. And the Christian notion of grace begins by being honest about how bad that situation actually is, by acknowledging that everyone of us are equally born into it, and that no human scheme solves the problem.

Our Christian notion of grace, in contrast to a message of exceptions and pleas with particulars as excuses, affirms that wrongs in this world, however broken it may be, are still so serious that they require death.

And then God does the dying.

Context and complexity may make it easier for me to understand why we need God’s mercy. But that does not change the seriousness of the problem. It’s only because of His divine death in Jesus, in His grace – without ever playing the minimizing humanistic compromise game – that He forgives right in the midst of a full declaration of what was wrong.

You feel there wasn’t a better choice or way out. You think others could manage it because they had options or opportunities or privilege. Nonsense. We’re all radically in the wreckage. We’re all dead in it. We’re all complicit in it. And the only hope for any of us is the death and new life of Christ.

Now, the way we treat each other should be saturated in kindness, understanding, and mercy. But don’t fall for exceptions as a means to making new rules, particularly by schemes to reframe the circumstances in more favourable terms. That road leaves people without hope, and that’s not actually the good you intend.

The real answer is that there are no excuses for what happened or what you’ve done. The microfibres of moral acts are too small for us to assess perfectly, but we feel their grain . . . so guilt secretly persists even when we hear the rationalizations of ourselves or others dusting and polishing over the top. Even when we tell ourselves there was nothing else we could do, or we list all the external factors that make our case distinct from others who didn’t have it so hard. There are no excuses – and no need for them.

It was wrong. It was never ok. It was so wrong we don’t even really understand how it started or how we got tied into it. And all our hope now is on Christ, who knows what it means to live among the broken, who loves you and me, and who has already begun the surgery of soul care.

Confession without excuses, equivocations, or exceptions, just means laying on His table so He can begin to cut into us, and heal.