BROKEN CHORDS AND AMAZING GRACE

Setting in church a couple of Sunday's ago, and listening to the message of the day, some thoughts came flooding into me.  That doesn't happen to me too often so I wrote them down as a quickly as I could so I wouldn't forget them.  Now I'm trying to read my handwriting to decipher what I wrote.  More difficult to read than hieroglyphics, as I make my way through my scribbles, the memories are flooding my thoughts again, only this time they are flooding my heart, too.  They are miscellaneous but somehow form a pattern, a glorious pattern of grace.

1. Jesus descends the mountain.
2. My brokenness is not beyond the reach of grace.
3. Chords that are broken will vibrate once more.
4. The stench of death will give way to the fragrant aroma of Christ.
5. The old will go; the new will come.
6. The brokenness will mend.
7. God comes into the mess and stamps His life on the whole thing we call our lives.

The mountain Jesus descended was the mount of Transfiguration.  Rather than stay on the mountain He came back down into His world where broken, lonely, needy people lived.  In other words, He comes right down into the middle of what we call life.

Once there Jesus embraces us with a divine and holy hug, and His very presence draws out of us the belief that our brokenness, even ours, is not beyond the reach of His grace.

The thought about Chords vibrating once more come from one of Fanny Crosby's song, Rescue the Pershing, written in 1869

Down in the human heart, Crushed by the tempter,

Feelings lie buried that grace can restore;

Touched by a loving heart, Wakened by kindness,

Chords that are broken will vibrate once more.

                                   
I've often wondered exactly what might have been on Crosby's mind when she wrote those words.  I know they speak clearly into my life.  There was a time when my life was broken, damaged, and besieged by my own sins.  There was no wholeness, just brokenness.  Then the grace came.  The mending took place. The healing occurred.  The miracle broke forth.  Chords that were broken began to vibrate once more. The music was restored.  Amazing grace spoke into my life and restored what had been stolen.

The next phrase comes from the story of Lazarus who was raised from the dead by Jesus.  He had been dead four days when Jesus asked that the tomb be opened.  The shocked family and friends reminded Jesus that Lazarus had been dead long enough for the stench of death to permeate the tomb.  Was it really wise to move the stone away?  They obeyed, however, and Jesus spoke the word of life into the deceased body of Lazarus.  The stench of death gave way to the fragrant aroma of Christ, and Jesus ordered that the grave cloths be removed from Lazarus.  A living man no longer needs the trappings of death.  The new aroma is the fragrant aroma of Jesus the Christ—the aroma of life and victory and grace and love and power and victory and compassion. 

The last three phrases speak for themselves.  When the fragrant aroma of Jesus dominates stories the old goes, and the new comes.  People experience first hand that brokenness does, in fact, mend, when that brokenness is placed into the hands Jesus the Christ.  I've seen it, and so have you, that moment when God comes into the mess and stamps His life on the whole thing we call our lives. 

The miracle of Jesus is so powerful that those who encounter Him tend to reorder their lives after Him and the grace He has lavished on them. In the chaos and mess of things, a glorious pattern of grace begins to take shape.  The stench off death no longer permeates.   The glorious and transforming fragrance of Christ fills the air. Graves cloths are no longer called for.  The signs of new beginnings emerge on the horizon. 

We become overwhelmed "that God should love a sinner such as I" ("Such Love," by C Bishop and Robert Harkness, 1929) and come into the mess, and stamp His life on the whole thing we call our lives.  What do we do with such a love?  Maybe Augustine speaks for us all when he prayed,

You called, you shouted, you broke through my deafness,

you flared, blazed, and banished my blindness,

you lavished your fragrance, and I gasped.

"I gasped."  Maybe this is the best spontaneous, unrehearsed, extemporaneous response available for one who expected judgment and, who, instead, found themselves caught up in God's amazing, poured out, and lavished grace.

In eighteen century England, Charles Wesley "gasped," and then wrote, 

Long my imprisoned spirit lay

Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;

My chains fell off, my heart was free,

I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

My chains fell off, my heart was free,

I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.