GRACE ONSTAGE (March 17, 2023)

“Write of the light,” the angel said. “The world has crouched in darkness for too long. The shadows multiply, as do the myths and monsters they invent. One sharp, clean shaft of light will welcome in the future.”

And so we write and talk of grace, especially when shadows crowd our little stage, and curtains warn the play might soon be ending. Anxieties will have their run: calamities of every kind remind us just how fragile is our script, how inconsistent our direction.

But there is One who holds the drama—and our futures—without care or worry, haste or fear. “He Himself is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Col 1:17). And by His own description, He is love—unbounded, unconditional, eternal. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of all people” (John 1: 4). He is “the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17).

When there is nothing good to write of us, the grace of Christ heals what is wounded in our play and spotlights what He did to save us: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them” (2 Cor 5:19).

As stage lights warm the final act, so fear succumbs to light and laughter. The drama on our stage becomes a story of redemption. And all the cheering at the end is the applause of angels.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott