Meditations on Grace: Psalm 107

“Let them thank the LORD for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of men.”Psalm 107

The readings for this coming 4th Sunday in Lent, strike me as a great opportunity to meditate on what grace really is. In our confirmation classes we usually start out with basic definitions such as “an undeserved gift,” and work our way out from there. But as many Christians have put quite a few years under the bridge since middle school or high school confirmation studies, it might be time to revisit this concept again for a broader audience. Just what is grace, anyway?

In our psalm for this week, numerous human events are juxtaposed with God’s deliverance. People wander from God’s Word, and thus from God Himself, finding themselves in calamity and danger. Each time they return to God, calling out to Him in faith, He delivers them. The peoples’ weakness in faith, hope, and love, is met by their Creator with a steadfast love and wondrous works of salvation. What is unsure with people, becomes sure with God.

We can be deceived by the notion, that because God promises to deliver us when we call on him in faith, that somehow He owes this to us. After all, if God promised to deliver us, and we fulfill our end of the bargain, God is bound to keep up His end, right? We just do our wandering and self serving, keeping an eye on the horizon to ensure we don’t get too far away from God, and when it looks like the consequences of our evil are about to whack us, we run back to God and say, “save me!” That’s the old error we often refer to as “cheap grace,” which in the end, really isn’t grace at all. It’s a way of trying to exact wages from God—and believe me, you don’t want God giving you what you earned.

Grace being something undeserved, we can’t turn it into a work we initiate. We can’t manage God’s economy, play the derivatives market, and hope to profit at the end. The first of God’s gracious gifts is to bless us with His Law, which reveals our true situation—in the face of a holy God, we can only despair of our unfaithfulness and evil. But, in despairing of our own works, we are left with our eyes on Him as our only hope of salvation, as there is none left in all creation who can deliver us from our wages earned under sin. Those eyes which despair of the self and plead for mercy from above, are given the greater gift: forgiveness, life, and salvation in Christ.

This is why grace can only be received by faith—a faith that trusts in Christ alone. There is nothing in ourselves we can hope to cling to, no plan we can hope to devise, no deal we can hope to cut. Our saving faith of trust and love is either in our Savior, or it is not. God is not bound to offer us anything other than judgment for the sake of our sins, but in Jesus Christ, we are clothed in His righteousness and healed by His wounds. Here, the repentant heart calls out in faith, “Lord, save me!” And here, our gracious and loving God reaches out to us just like He did to St. Peter on the raging waters, and taking our hand, asks us, “Why did you doubt?”

A good question for us to ponder during Lent—why do we doubt? Why do we leave the steadfast love of God, and go chasing idols made in our own image? Why do we tempt God by sleeping with the devil, and planning to hold God to account for saving us when our debauchery finds us out? Any willful sin is mortal and deadly, revealing our lack of faith, and hope, and trust in our saving God—and to those in mortal sin, they remain in mortal danger of the judgment of God, for apart from faith, there is no grace. But for those who believe, who have been given the Spirit’s gift of faith and trust in our Lord Jesus Christ, there is no calamity or danger He will not rescue us from—no peril or enemy He will abandon us to. Living by grace, forgiven and free through faith in the Son of God, even the pains of death do not destroy us. Sin, death, and the devil are conquered, and we are left as inheritors of eternal life, through cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Let the devil rage, and the world chase their folly. We have Christ crucified for us, poor and miserable sinners though we be, and His gift of grace which He brings to our hearts of faith. There is no terror of the night or day which can harm us, no wickedness nor evil which can undo us. We live by grace through faith in Christ, who alone is the victor over every evil foe—who alone is the author and finisher of our faith. He calls to us, bidding us to repent, believe, and live. Hear Him. Amen.