A Grace Trap
The VM clan had the opportunity to take in Les Miserables the musical, playing in Grand Rapids. I am sure that many of you are familiar with the story of Jean Valjean, the convict whose life is transformed when a priest bestows an immense grace upon him during an occasion that he deserved justice. As Valjean's story plays out, we see a man who lives his life in response to this grace and uses his days to bless others.
On the opposite side of Valjean is Javert, an officer of the law, who himself lives rigorously by the law and pursues Valjean through the years. Javert is fixated on Valjean because, though Valjean is transformed, Javert only sees a convict who has broken his parole. As a long story reaches its end, the tables are turned and Valjean has Javert in his power with the task of executing him. But much to Javert's anguish, Valjean does the worse thing possible, he shows him grace. He lets Javert go free, rescuing him from certain death. Javert cannot live with this and sings:
Who is this man? What sort of devil is he, to have me caught in a trap and choose to let me go free? It was his hour at last to put the seal on my fate, wipe out the past and wash me clean off the slate! All it would take was a flick of his knife. Vengeance was his and he gave me back my life! Damned if I'll live in the debt of a thief! Damned if I'll yield at the end of the chase! I am the Law and the Law is not mocked. I'll spit his pity right back in his face! There is nothing on Earth that we share! It is either Valjean or Javert!
How can I now allow this man to hold dominion over me? This desperate man whom I have hunted…He gave me my life. He gave me freedom. I should have perished by his hand. It was his right. It was my right to die as well. Instead I live…but live in Hell! And my thoughts fly apart. Can this man be believed? Shall his sins be forgiven? Shall his crimes be reprieved? And must I now begin to doubt, who never doubted all these years? My heart is stone, and still it trembles! The world I have known is lost in shadow. Is he from heaven or from hell? And does he know…that, granting me my life today, this man has killed me, even so? I am reaching…but I fall. And the stars are black and cold, as I stare into the void of a world that cannot hold. I'll escape now from that world, from the world of Jean Valjean. There is nowhere I can turn, there is no way to go on!
These are his words before taking his own life. The man who had lived by the law could not live under grace.
In many ways these are the themes that we have been tracing in Hebrews. The grace of a once and for all deliverance through the blood of Jesus Christ or a return to the law, with its objective, yet necessarily repeated sacrifices. In Valjean and Javert we see embodied the two paths on offer. Path one, like Valjean, surrender to grace allowing it to transform you. Or path two, like Javert, insist on living by law, and keep the idea of grace at bay. This week we will be looking at chapter 9:23-28 with an emphasis on the once for all sacrifice of Jesus that sets us free both now and into eternity.
Living by grace is not as easy as it seems and, if truth be told, we all have a little Javert who lives in our hearts. Robert Capon eerily articulates this inner Javert with the prayer of the grace-averse heart: Lord, please restore to us the comfort of merit and demerit. Show us that there is at least something we can do. Tell us that at the end of the day there will at least be one redeeming card of our very own. Lord, if it is not too much to ask, send us to bed with a few shreds of self-respect upon which we can congratulate ourselves. But whatever you do, do not preach grace. Give us something to do, anything; but spare us the indignity of this indiscriminate acceptance.
May God grant us the grace to behold the face of Jesus and surrender to his grace! So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him (Hebrews 9:28).
Photo by Faris Mohammed on Unsplash