Undeserved Grace

          I’m still on a mountaintop after seeing Les Miserables at the movie theatre over the weekend. When I worked in New York City, I went to the Broadway production three times, but for me, the movie captured the story in a way the stage production could not and now, I really get it!       

           Close ups of the characters and multiple images of the cast on the big screen during medleys provided intensity that could not be achieved while watching Les Mis in a live audience.  However, it was the prevailing image of the cross that appeared throughout the movie and the continuous theme about the grace of God that struck me so hard.

            The main character, Jean Valjean, a convicted criminal, is able to accept God’s grace. His pursuer, Inspector Javert cannot.

            Isn’t that the story in our world today? Many do not understand their need for grace or they don’t want God’s grace because it might require a behavioral change.

            Instead of comparing ourselves to a holy, perfect God, we line ourselves up against the worst of the worst: the mass murderers, the thieves and the blatantly ungodly. Compared to that, who needs grace?  We measure up pretty good, but scripture says, All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. 

            I was one of those who sugar coated my sin until the Lord revealed it to me through a Bible study on Romans. Although I accepted Christ as my savior in high school, I really didn’t understand the magnitude of that act of mercy towards me until I placed my name in this passage from Romans 1:21-25:          

            For although Lisa knew God, she neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but her thinking became futile and her foolish heart was darkened. Although Lisa claimed to be wise, she became a fool and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave Lisa over in the sinful desires of her heart to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.  She exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.

            Didn’t that describe me in college after I had accepted Christ in high school? I was foolish. I was sinful and impure. I exchanged the glory of the immortal God for popularity, parties and boys. How could I live like that as a person who had come to a saving knowledge of Jesus?  I had not realized how unworthy I was of God’s grace until that moment, some twenty years after I had prayed the prayer of salvation, but unlike Inspector Javert in Les Miserables, I desired God’s grace and hopefully have extended it to others since that revelation.

What about you? Have you ever really reflected on the grace of God and what it means in your life? Do you live a life of grace towards others? I often think, “How can I not forgive a person when God has forgiven me for so much?”

That’s why Les Miserables was so powerful.  I could relate. Jean Valjean was shown grace even though he was a thief and headed for prison again. He didn’t deserve it, but neither do we.