Finding Grace in Time of Need
Hebrews 4:14-16
14. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15. For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
By the time you read this, I’ll be packing up – and doing final room checks – to return home to Richmond. Teenagers will be sad to leave their new-found friends, and will commit to maintain this new, heightened level of spirituality! They decide to be better Christians and to live a life more worthy of the Savior who died on a cross for them. And they are absolutely certain that they will be able to change the world just as soon as they get back home. I know all this, because I’ve been on this trip four times before this year. And I’ve felt the same way. I will already have started praying for the one or two kids who take me aside and tell me something they need help with in their lives before we even pull away from the retreat center. And I’m thinking how strong and committed I’m going to be—that this year, after this trip, I really am going to be a better Christian, live a life more worthy of my Savior’s sacrifice, and maybe . . . just maybe in my spare time, I’ll figure out a way to change the world.
I’m not being sarcastic! I’m not intending to be flippant or disrespectful at all! I’m just being a realist. (Those who know me, don’t see that quality in me often – I’m usually the “pie in the sky idealist” of the group!) I really do want to be different—better. And I do sincerely desire to contribute something meaningful to change the course of the world for good. Just like these idealist, amazing, incredible teenagers I will have spent the last 4 days with, I desperately want a deep and abiding relationship with Christ. And I want to live out that relationship in my daily life – for the rest of my life.
And like those teenagers, I go back to “the world.” We enter back into a reality where the minority are Christians. We live with those who haven’t heard the Good News and we struggle to figure out how to tell them—because they really don’t seem very receptive to anything we saying. And the world isn’t kind and loving, and they don’t encourage stepping out in faith and stepping up with courage. The world wants us to “shut up” and “put up.” The world doesn’t want us to rock the boat of social justice. The world doesn’t want us to upset the status quo. But we want to . . . if only we could just go back to LJ . . . and just live there . . . and not have to face the world “out there.”
I wistfully imagine that life every year! But I know that’s not what Jesus came to earth to teach us. We have the gift of those few days in the mountains to prepare us, to fortify us, to encourage us and to send us forth. Out into the world – like Jesus. He didn’t stop to worry about the status quo. He loved the unlovable. He ate dinner with the outcasts. He wrote the book on social justice. And he understands how difficult it is for us to be the lone voice calling in the wilderness of sin and greed. “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
He knows. He hung on a cross. And now he sits on the throne of grace. And he did it for us. He did it so that we would have the confidence to do it too. Pick up the cross. You won’t carry it alone.
I hope today, you’ll pray for me, for the other adults, and for all the youth who are on their way back to reality. And that maybe, in some small way, all of us working together really will be able to change the world.
Mary
