Autumn: A Very Short Poem

Dappled sunlight twixt autumn leaves

Soft breezes tumbling cross houses' firm eaves

Beauty that brings tears to the eye

And joy to wipe them on one's sleeves

AJ Finch

The Price of Grace

I was reading some Boenhoffer the other day while at Jiffy Lube. (This was amazing luck, i was waiting for them to change my oil and do their 21 million point inspection when lo' and behold an intelligent piece of literature! It lay on the table next to me like a piece of gold in a coal mine sitting there on top of all the sappy magazines and piece of crap rags called publications that usually frequent waiting rooms of all sorts. Providence!) Crap! Lost my train of thought...

Oh Yes, so I was reading Boenhoffer and his discussion on grace reminded me of a song lyric from the band Reliant K:

"But the beauty of grace is that it makes life unfair."

I think that for a lot of my life I had the wrong conception about what Christian grace really was, and I think many of us do. I'd like to put out some thoughts about it now.

Grace doesn't make life unfair.

It makes it absolutely fair, but in the opposite direction. Let me explain.

When the average Christian thinks of grace they are talking about the force which absolves their sin debt. Man is sinful, God is gracious through Jesus Christ, balance is achieved, nuff said right?

The problem that arises is thus: if God is gracious and He forgives all my sin through grace and all I need to do is pray the sunday school "Jesus save me" prayer, then why worry about sin at all?

Really! When I think about sin, there is no grave feeling, no worry, no condemnation cause I am saved by grace, woot! It's a beautiful world is it not?

Under this line of thought it would be easy to write a lyric stating that grace makes life unfair, I mean all i had to do was pray a simple prayer and attend church semi-regularly and all my sin goes away, all the other worldly f-ers will simply go to hell cause they forgot to pray the prayer, unfairness is awesome for the beneficiaries!

But I think it rubs us all wrong to hear these menial thoughts displayed in such a naked fashion. If grace is unfair then grace is a bitch.

Grace is abolutely fair, and I'll explain my humble thoughts here.

When we treat grace as the cheap payment for our sin we act in a fashion disrespectful to our God. Jesus Christ was the grace given us by God, as all Christians will agree. Cheap grace, however, does nothing to transform the soul. Under a rule of cheap grace a sinner may remain a sinner but wear the uniform of a Christian.

Cheap grace says, because Christ died for me I'm free from worrying about sin, my sin debt is paid.

Sin Debt=Christ's Payment on the Cross

(= sign meaning "balanced by" like a scale)

But, this only answers half of the algebra problem because on the other side of the equation should be Christ's resurrection.

If Christ had remained dead there the equation would have remained. If Christ had remained dead who knows if I'd be writing this blog today or even care, but He did not remain dead. Christ rose again and now He has thrown off the equation:

Sin Debt=Christ's Gracious Sacrifice+Christ's Resurrection

Now the equation is imbalanced. And this is what is unfair about cheap grace. Cheap grace would like to leave this equation exactly as it is. I deserve death and seperation from God because of sin but I don't have to worry about it at all because Christ died and rose again for me. Sin no longer matters. But Christ's Resurrection does. Most Christians that rely on cheap grace tend to forget that Jesus is even alive, they focus on His death more than His life because to recognize His life is costly. If we really believed that a Man that loved us so much that He gave His life to save us from a death we justly deserved is now risen from the dead and alive it would make all the difference in the world.

Christ is alive and for us to receive the gift of the equation of grace we must respond to His life with our very own.

The requirement now on us is not death but something much better. It is now our love for Him and our life lived fully for Him. We cannot live our old lives under cheap grace because He does not live His old life, but a new resurrected one. The old game is gone, let's take on the new. Grace requires that all that we do, our entire lives be lived for Him, by Him, and in Him, under His resurrection. This is how it all balances out.

The Debt of Sin+A Life Surrendered to Christ=Christ's Sacrifice+Resurrection

Now there is balance.

When we realize that Christ not only died but is now alive we will see that not only does our old life of sin need to die but our new life given us by Christ belongs to Him.

The beauty of Grace is that it makes life absolutely fair. Let's live in balance with our beliefs and not forget our Sacrificial Savior is now our Living Lord.

AJ Finch

The Hype of Healthcare: A debilitating distraction

Ok. Why focus on healthcare anyway?

While reading several responses by leading economists to Baucus' health plan that was released this morning I asked myself the question, "Why all the hype on healthcare?". Ok. More accurately my thoughts transpired as "Duh! How could we all be so stupid, we're all looking in the wrong direction!"

The root of the problem isn't that people don't have healthcare, it's that they don't have jobs. Healthcare costs money, money comes from a sustained and healthy economy that can provide for itself the healthcare it needs.

The ultimate problem with all these plans for healthcare, and everyone will agree, is that they are very costly. Henry J. Aaron wrote for the New York Times, "The fundamental challenge is simple: extending health insurance to everyone is expensive."

Aaron seemed to think, however, that the only solution to the expense problem was to increase taxes through a strong unified democratic vote. But would that solve the root issue? I think not. The only way to insure a healthy America is to have a healthy American economy insuring itself, either publicly or privately, but it all boils down to money that at this point just isn't there.

In a healthy economic environment the larger problem of healthcare will naturally abate. Granted there will still be cases of individuals or families with disabilities or low income levels that need to be cared for, but in a healthy economic climate the needs of the few can be met by the needs of the many through careful distribution of aid. But in a time of economic turmoil the American people cannot afford to shift their focus from the rebuilding of our fragile economy to passing legislation that's egregious expense may have armageddon size economic consequences.

Here i believe an analogy may be appropriate. When a trained fighter that's just broken his wrist hear's of a rival who wishes to challenge him in the ring, he doesn't run out shouting "Do your worst!". He doesn't take the challenge because he knows he will fail. His fighting tool is not yet ready. So he waits, he heals, he trains. And when the rival comes back at him with the challenge, he cooly accepts. He is now ready to face the worst, with his very best.

America has a broken wrist, and before it takes a swing at the belligerent giant of healthcare reform it should ask itself, "Am I ready to take a beating?"

AJ Finch