The embodiment of grace

Psalm 45: 1 – 7

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 22 Jul, 2007

ALL THE WAY through his series, I have talked about grace and pointed out how it ties in with Jesus’ death on the cross. Today, let’s turn our attention directly upon him.

Jesus is the embodiment of grace. That is why our faith is never finally in salvation or grace or hope or any other thing. Our faith is in Jesus, and it is by and through him that we have all these other blessings.

John writes about him,

^{John 1:14} The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son , who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
¹⁵ John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ ”
¹⁶ Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.
¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ

Jesus is full of grace, and it is this grace which he showers on all who believe in him.

In the gospel, grace is never a merely mechanical thing. When I was at University I occasionally submitted assignments late. The theory was that you had to hand your assignment in to the department secretary before she went home. But, as an evening student, I often didn’t even get to Uni until after 5:30, so I would have to push my essay under the door.

They thought they were extending grace to us evening students who worked during the day. What it really meant was that there was a different deadline for evening students than for day students.

5:00 pm for day students, and before 8 the next morning for evening students.

It’s not really grace.

Here’s real grace. It’s 4:30 the day after the essay was due. You go to the lecturer and say, “I’m really sorry — I didn’t get this in in time, and I really have no excuse.”

And the lecturer has compassion and says, “I can see you are troubled about being late and will try not to do this too often. That’s OK — I won’t penalise you this time.”

That’s grace, because the lecturer has to pay for my lateness.

I know what it’s like to mark 30 tertiary–level essays. It’s no easy task. Maths is fairly easy. Seven marks for right answers, three marks for right technique but wrong answer.

But History and English and Communications — you have to look at the arguments, you have to consider the expression, you need to compare them against each other, and every one that arrives after you start marking means you have to start again.

Grace is free, but it is never cheap.

Grace is never a merely mechanical thing: it grows out of engagement and personal relationship.

LIPS ANOINTED WITH GRACE

So we come to our Psalm, and we read,

Your lips have been anointed with grace.

This Psalm was probably written for a royal wedding, but its application is ultimately to Jesus. He is the one whose lips have been anointed with grace.

In the harsh, dry climate of the Middle East, people often needed to put oils and creams on their lips to avoid drying and cracking. They anointed their lips.

You ladies understand about anointing your lips. You protect and beautify them. We men are less experienced with these things.

At school we had to wear make–up for the operas and plays. Once I had to wear a bald wig to look older than I was. I hated the lipstick. because it made my mouth feel greasy and sticky, and it felt hard to talk. But it added to the “old man” look.

The king in this psalm has his lips anointed with grace. As a king, he doesn’t merely express opinions. He declares the laws. He establishes his Kingdom’s style and attitudes.

What he says, goes.

And what he says is gracious, because it has to pass through the filter of the grace anointing his lips. As the stage make–up affected my speech, the grace on the King’s lips affects his speech.

Every four years we have an election, and it seems to be an auction of oppression. Each leader vies with the other to be the harshest. One would be leader was going to have the police go around and round up all the young Lebanese men last time. That’s not justice! That’s racism and discrimination. There is no shred of grace in it.

GRACE BASED IN RIGHTEOUSNESS

The image of the King in this psalm is of a righteous and a gracious king. Grace can only truly grow out of justice, righteousness, humility and truth.

God doesn’t merely give away without considering consequences.

The Psalmist uses the words “truth,” “humility,” “justice,” “righteousness.”

We read,

^{Ps 45:4} In your majesty ride forth victoriously in the cause of truth, humility and justice

and again,

^{Ps 45:7} You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.

This is a good king, not merely a kind king.

In the book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, one of the children sees Aslan, the lion, and asks, “Is he safe?” And their guide says, “Safe? No — he"s a lion. He’s not safe, but he’s good!”

God may not always be kind, but he is always good.

My wife, Chris, works for Anglicare in emergency relief. People come to her when they have no food, when they are likely to have the power cut off, or when they have phone bill problems.

You may think, “Oh, yes — one of those do–gooders who keeps people right where they are, always coming for a handout.”

But Anglicare’s emergency relief program is really based on grace, and that grace is revealed as true grace because it expresses righteousness and truth and justice.

This week, a new worker from another service rang her up to ask questions. She couldn’t understand how Anglicare got the same resources as they did, but rarely ran out of vouchers and food cards and such stuff, but their agency often had nothing to give.

Anglicare doesn’t merely hand over money because people ask. Chris expects them to bring their bill and an income statement from Centrelink and prove what their need really is. “Why should we give to people who just want to supplement their income? What if we had nothing left for people who have had a sickness in the family or whose electricity bill went up dramatically because someone is on dialysis?”

The young worker hadn’t heard such ideas before.

Chris told how Anglicare has a written policy, how they stick to it, how they encourage people to arrange for regular payments to cover their bills — it is designed to set them free, not to enslave them.

Cheap grace is not grace at all, because it enslaves people. Grace against a background of justice, righteousness, humility and truth — that sets people free.

It is costly grace, because there is a price to pay to give it.

I’ve told the story before, but it bears telling again. A certain man started on a major journey. He’d tried to set out a number of times, but things had never worked out for him. Now he could not put it off any longer.

He came to a bridge over a river. The banks were steep, the bridge was high over the rocks below, the waters were flooding from the early spring snow melts. Approaching the bridge from the other side was a stranger, who looked at the traveller as though he knew him, and was pleased to see him.

Something was unusual about the stranger‘s appearance, and, when they met in the middle of the bridge, the traveller saw what it was. The stranger had a stout rope tied around his waist and wound many times around his body.

“It’s great to see you!” said the stranger. “Can you do me a favour? Just hold the end of this rope for me.”

The traveller thought this was strange, but he didn’t want to seem unhelpful, so he held the rope.

“Hold tight!” said the stranger. “Wrap the end of the rope around yourself, and brace yourself against thge bridge rails.”

The traveller did as he was asked.

The stranger vaulted over the rail and plummetted down to the end of the rope. He nearly pulled the traveller down with him.

After a while of holding the rope, the traveller looked down at the stranger, just dangling there.

“If you start climbing up, I will pull on the rope, and we will soon get you back up,” said the traveller.

“It’s alright!” called the stranger. “Just keep holding, and I will stay here. It’s quite safe!”

“But it is getting dark,and I have to get on with my journey,” said the traveller.

But the stranger would not come up.

Finally, the traveller tried one more time.

“You climb, I’ll pull, and we’ll get you back up. I can’t lift you by myself. If you don’t try, I will have to let you go, because I can’t stay here forever!”

“No!” cried the stranger. “How could you even consider something so cruel? I will die if you let me fall into the river!”

“I can’t keep holding you,” said the traveller. “Are you coming up?”

There was no reply.

“Then I accept your decision,” said the traveller, and he let go.

There is a time to hold someone up who is falling over; there is a time to let go the person who refuses to stand.

Real grace is about building up; cheap grace lets people drain us and our resources.

When we face the truth, always seek to do what is right, not merely what seems kind or easy, we will be able to act graciously.

A just ruler, a righteous ruler, knows how to be gracious, but knows his friends and knows his enemies.

That is why the Psalm says,

Ps 45:5 Let your sharp arrows pierce the hearts of the king’s enemies; let the nations fall beneath your feet.

Not all enemies attack and wound. Some merely sneak around and steal. They steal time, effort, attention, but they never find their own lives.

The grace that God shows us through Jesus our Lord is always based in God’s character — a character marked not only by love, but also by truth, humility, justice and righteousness.

RECEIVING GRACE

We all face times of temptation. Some of us here have given way to sins which will affect us the rest of our lives. All of us have fallen into temptation of some kind or other, and given way into sin.

Temptation isn’t sin, but yielding is.

But be careful. The one who plots theft but never does it may well be an idolater of money; and the line between affection and unfaithfulness can be blurry though no adultery takes place. All sins begin in the heart.

Paul writes to the Corinthians about the various sins represented in society — thieves and robbers, adulterers, perjurers and such — and he concludes,

And such were some of you.

Perhaps we didn’t go quite that far, but it really doesn’t matter, does it?

We know our sins. We know the grace needed to cover all our sin.

The point of the gospel is that we have nothing to give in exchange, except ourselves.

The concluding verses of the Psalm, beginning with verse 9, are about a gathering of people to the King.

These people include the King’s bride, but they also include representatives of all nations, all drawn to the one true and splendid King.

We read,

¹³ All glorious is the princess within her chamber; her gown is interwoven with gold.

¹⁴ In embroidered garments she is led to the king; her virgin companions follow her— those brought to be with her.

¹⁵ Led in with joy and gladness, they enter the palace of the king.

and

¹² The city of Tyre will come with a gift, people of wealth will seek your favour.

The princess is one of the people, chosen and raised up to royal status, the bride of the King.

It’s an image taken up in the New Testament — God’s people as the Bride of Christ, splendid in perfection, clothed with righteousness.

And the nations come together to such a gracious Lord, bowing in adoration and praise to the One who always does well. The Bible says,

^45:17 I will perpetuate your memory through all generations; therefore the nations will praise you for ever and ever

CONCLUSION

Ours is an era of confusion. People have an idea of grace, but don’t understand the strength it is based in. They think of grace as being soft and gentle, no matter what.

The problem is that they can see no room for grace in situations where things must be done rightly.

What this boils down to is that we are gracious to people like ourselves when they are in a crisis, and unbelievably harsh at times to people unlike ourselves — the outsiders, people of different races and religions, for example.

As Christians, we must be like Jesus, just as Jesus depicts for us the true Just King, like in Psalm 45.

There are many situations in our own society where grace and justice have to work hand in hand. Justice requires that people meet basic standards, that they fulfil their obligations, that they bear responsibility for their failings and faults. But grace allows for weaknesses, understands that we all sometimes feel defeated, lose our way, do what we later regret. There has to be room for that, there has to be space where the imprisoned can be released and the blind can receive sight, and the oppressed be released.

Let’s look to Jesus, and see how he embodies grace; and let’s never give up until grace fills our land, standing alongside justice and righteousness as an equal partner.

Jesus is our King, and he shall rule in justice. But he is also the bringer of grace upon grace to all who will receive. What a wonderful Saviour!  AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2007. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)