Today I ran across this video from 2011. It is a vignette of two famous actors who have been in the gutter more than once, but prop each other up with forgiveness and acceptance as they stumble along. Hollywood films portray beautiful truths, but Hollywood lives rarely do. Here is a two minute “acceptance speech” by Walter Downey Jr. that is a message of hope for those of us who are recovering sinners
EMBRACING THE FALLEN
Matthew 1:3 Judah fathered Perez and Zerah by Tamar
Art from Trash
Perez and Zerah are named together because they are twins, but why Tamar was mentioned is a quandry. None of the honorable women before her in the genealogy are noted, but when we hit a scandal, Matthew has to dredge it up. Well, he didn’t really have to go digging because the Old Testament itself was quite blatant about the whole sordid affair. Tamar was Judah’s widowed daughter-in-law, and she prostituted herself to get pregnant by Judah. Anyone proud of their genealogy would surely have skipped past this crooked branch, but Matthew, for some reason, calls attention to it, as though reminding his readers that their glory was not from their ancestors, but from their gracious God who could use the worst to bring the best. It is not to God’s discredit that he used such flawed materials to construct his kingdom, but it shows the incomparable power of his redemption.
God is in the salvage and reclamation business, and he is so creative that he makes the results better than if they had come from perfect materials. His second creation far surpasses his first, not just restoring innocence, but infusing us and our relationships with a far greater life force. The glories of forgiveness, mercy, patience, sacrifice, in short of grace, were unrevealed in Genesis one. It is natural for beautiful things to be appreciated and enjoyed, but that is such a meager understanding of love compared to that revealed by one who treasures the broken and ugly, so much as to sacrifice himself for our sake. Without the Fall, we could not have experienced the depths, lengths, and heights of God’s unconditional love.
WHO IS LOVED?
Being loved for only what is good in us is a direct building block of legalism–be good and you will be loved. If we are loved only in our beauty, then we are unloved as ourselves. How astonishing to discover God saying–be bad and I will love you every bit as much. Unshakeable security only rests in an unchangeable love… for, as Paul tells us, “if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.” He cannot stop being a love-filled God, even though it breaks his heart. It seems to me that we have a far greater awareness and experience of God’s love than Adam and Eve who literally walked with God daily. Who can express the deep peace and intense bond that comes from being loved wholly, being embraced with our every defect?
July 4th Kimberly and I visited her Aunt Pam on the lake. It had been a nice day, but started to rain an hour before we left. As we drove home on a two lane road, I came around a curve and spotted a car stopped in front of me with a car passing it in the oncoming lane. Because of the rain, I knew I could never brake in time, but there was no shoulder. I swerved onto the sloped wet grass and the tires slid uncontrollably down the embankment into a row of spaced wooden pylons at the bottom. Bump! …Bump! …Bump! …Bump!
Thankfully, the window-high logs were not buried or cemented in the ground, so each one went down successively and did what my brakes could not. We ended up just short of a side street, gently enough that the airbags did not deploy. It was a close call. The plastic front bumper was torn badly and we had a big dent in the fender, but after I strapped up the broken bumper with 3 bungee cords, we managed to drive home okay, though we were both shaken up.
When anything bad happens, especially with a potential repeat, the “if” question starts flashing like a warning light. If I had been more alert, I may have been able to stop in time… if my tire treads were better… if I had been driving slower… if Kimberly had been driving. Identifying the crucial “if” and finding its answer seems to be our voucher to a safe future, especially for us fix-it types.
For those of us who are also shame sponges, our very worth seems to ride on these answers. The “if” must not point to me. I must prove that I could not have foreseen or planned or reacted any better than I did, even when it means, sadly, that I find someone else to blame. When I’m unarguably at fault, then a second defense to my worth is to fix the results, make sure there is no cost to anyone but myself. When this also is beyond my reach, then a weak third defense is to settle on a solution that will prevent this incident ever recurring.
Unfortunately, these three steps of unhealthy self-protection can look very spiritually mature, even to myself. I can pass it off as self-examination, restitution, and repentance. I think I am fleeing from shame into rectitude, but I am actually running from true forgiveness and grace into the apparent safety of legalism. I cannot believe that there is complete forgiveness and reconciliation without some payment from my side… a payment of promises, of sorrow and groveling, or of corrective action. The smaller my failure footprint, the easier it is to forgive me… at least that is what I picked up from interacting with fellow humans.
Once thoroughly trained in this relational dynamic, it is very hard for me to change the way I see God. Unlike us, he never finds it hard to forgive me and isn’t suspicious that my confession is contrived. He never lets the injury I have done him constrict his compassion for me or his desire to relate to me. I should not have said “never lets” as though his forgiveness was an act of his will to override his natural inclinations to retaliate. His love for me is always on full, regardless of what I have done.
Janathan Grace Reflections 