I Corinthians 15:10 March 26, 2014

Marshall Jenkins     

I Corinthians 15: 10    

March 26, 2014

But by God’s grace, I am what I am, and the grace that he gave me was not without effect.  On the contrary, I have worked harder than the other apostles, although it was not really my own doing, but God’s grace working with me.

Saul claimed a fat resume full of prestigious identities.  Marked at birth among God’s chosen people, he also had his papers in order for Roman citizenship.  After holding the Pharisaic equivalent of the editorship of the Harvard Law Review, he led the troops commissioned with beating down the Christian riff-raff.  Beyond reproach in the eyes of anybody who was anybody, it was more than sufficient for Saul to be Saul without any help from anybody else (Philippians 3:4b-6).

Then came grace.  Sweet grace?  Well, if you call getting blown out of your chariot and blinded for a few days, “sweet,” if you call begging shelter and tutelage from the ones you persecuted, “sweet,”  if you call the assignment to a life of conflicts, imprisonments, lashings, seasickness, and ridicule, “sweet,” then I suppose so.  But unlike his former self, Paul could say with confidence, “I am who I am,” because the identities we think we earn are bogus.  Paul knew grace told the story of his life, and who could pass up assurance that all the sufferings and sermons to clueless churches were not in vain?  

Who could pass up knowing that whatever we do for God’s sake in this lonely, thankless world is not in vain?  Who could know that except by grace?  Who could call that anything but sweet?

Gracious Lord, grant us, by your grace, the joy of living not for our narrow ends but for your loving reign on earth as it is in heaven.  Amen.