grace

I had the joy and pleasure of being able to witness the baptism of Elizabeth Adele this weekend…Ellie, that is. So sweet and what a wonderfully long service. :) the sermon was about grace…very appropriate, very good, very long. But it brought back a lot of thoughts about grace.

Often, I think, people see grace as fairness…the pastor had spoken about a man who had killed a couple for drug money or something but then had confessed his sorrow and regret to his girlfriend asking for the families forgiveness. He had continued saying he hoped to see them in heaven. Then the man killed himself. The pastor had written about the situation in his newsletter and had received an overwhelming response from his parishioners who felt the man shouldn’t go to heaven…it wasn’t fair. The flash of ‘works’ came back to me and the thought that you have to “DO” something to win favor with God. O! how I hope that isn’t true…because Lord knows I’m such a sinner and if heaven was based on works alone I would so be spending eternity with Dante instead.

Baptism is an incredible gift…I like the way our denomination views baptism – as a gift, something we don’t understand or ask for, but a gift, and incredible life-giving gift. It’s sad that as we get older we forget the beauty of an unexpected gift. Christmas lists, birthday requests…all lead up to ‘expected’ gifts. Hell, I’m even asking friends what they would like or NEED for ordination. Maybe it takes away a bit of the joy of receiving the gift – as well as the joy of giving. But we’re such a material society that we (natch, I) hesitate to give things that people don’t need or won’t use (like knickknacks…paddywhack, give a dog a bone). Baptism goes completely against that thought – you don’t NEED grace, maybe you won’t USE it, but it’s still a gift that God has given because God wants you to have it. Pretty cool.

I’m also overjoyed to be a prayer partner with Advent. I’ve found myself thinking more and more about the mission start and j&a&l&b-tbn. It’s exciting to be part of something though I’m not actually part of it. That doesn’t make sense but it’s still cool.