The two terms are tossed around quite freely by both preacher and teacher in modern-day Christianity.  But what do they really mean?  And how do they affect us? Let’s first look at the definitions given by Dictionary.com:

grace - favor or good will     (NOTE:  Dictionary.com also defines grace as mercy.)

mercy - compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender or enemy.

From teen-hood I was taught that grace was God giving us good things we don’t deserve, and mercy was God not giving us the punishment that we do deserve.  In the gospel scenario God shows us “mercy” by allowing his son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins.  We are told that our disobedience to God (our sin) separates us from Him, condemning us to eternal torture in Hell.  Because he loves us, he gives us his “grace” by letting Christ take our place (not in Hell) as a once-and-for-all sacrifice that will, in the Old Testament tradition, turn away God’s wrath.  With this marvelous (?) method of salvation, God will remember our sins no more — even those we are yet to commit.  Sweet deal, right?

The only redeeming ticket that will get you this grace is to accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and make him Lord of your life.  And you have to really, really mean it, or many will assume that your salvation wasn’t genuine or, as my dad used to say, “It didn’t take the first time.”  There are some believers (actually more than we might think) who, after many years, begin to live like the Devil again, and you would never know that they were “saved.”  They are either backsliders (salvation still good; they just need to be disciplined and brought back into the fold) or “it didn’t take the first time.”

Well, here I go.  Newsflash!  Jesus never spoke the word “grace,” and he never specifically addressed the accepted plan of salvation that would bring us God’s grace. Okay, go ahead and quote me Matthew 20:28 and Mark 10:45, the only two verses where Jesus says he came to be a “ransom for many.”  Here’s where it gets messy.

If you view the word “ransom” as the purchasing of freedom by paying a price, then who did Jesus buy us (the believers) back from — Satan?  Where does it say that God gave everyone to Satan to start with, since we all were allegedly born as sinful creatures?  Who did Jesus pay the ransom to — Satan or God?  If it was Satan, then Jesus tricked him because there was nothing he (Satan) could take to the bank.  He didn’t even get to keep Jesus after the crucifixion, because Jesus was resurrected.

If Jesus paid the ransom to God, then why would God hold us captive to sin to start with?  Doesn’t he love us?  Why punish an innocent person/being (Jesus), when it’s us that need the whipping?

We can confound this theory further by adding the element of the trinity.  In the Trinity, God is God, Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit is also God.

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If you think about it, it will drive you nuts.  More people get into trouble by assuming incorrectly what another person is thinking, whether it be about their appearance, their position on a given subject or about their character in general.

The brain is an amazing control room that regulates every aspect of our body, including maintenance of itself.  But beyond the around-the-clock internal life support system, the brain processes thoughts associated with innumerable intake sources involving smell, taste, touch, sight and sound.  Most of these generate pleasant or unpleasant responses, and many are used to protect the body as well as to nourish it.

A great part of our brain activity, however, is centered on interpreting communication using sight and sound.  Reading something causes us to judge it for accuracy or fairness, or even to compare it to our own life experiences.  Seeing things, be it real life or reproduced life, evokes similar responses.  Touch is added for emphasis, whether it be intimate, directive or hostile.

Basic human nature is that, upon meeting someone, we assess who they are and how we feel about them.  This relationship can progress either personally or as additional information is fed to us about the person or group.  As we get to know someone, we begin to build an expectation of how that person will react to what we say and do.  This is not a bad thing, necessarily, but can eventually cause a relationship to become stale or to deteriorate.

The greatest danger in communication is to presuppose what a person is thinking or how he/she will react.  And most of us do it.  Communication begins to breakdown when either party is offended about being second-guessed.

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The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

When President Roosevelt (FDR) spoke these words at his inaugural address, the country was at the bottom of the Great Depression.  He went on to describe fear as the “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

We all have fears, some more than others.  Even those who appear to be fearless are, in reality, able to keep their fears in check.  The causes of fear are endless, from ablutophobia (fear of washing or bathing) to zoophobia (fear of animals).  I recently confirmed that I have a touch of claustrophobia when I visited an inmate at the county jail.  Entering into a small, locked room, I spoke with him through a glass and telephone.  Ten minutes into the conversation I got dry mouth and had to pee.  And I still had 50 minutes to go before they would let me out!

The Bible documents a number of instances involving the fear of men, animals and elements.  Jesus said that we should not fear men, but rather “fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell.”  (Luke 12:5)  My fundamentalist friends assure me that the verse doesn’t mean that we should be afraid of God; we should respect him and recognize his awesome power — a sort of healthy fear of him.

While I recognize God’s omnipotence (the power to do anything he wants), I would rather approach him as my perfect Father, the one whom I can run to, and cling to, the one whom I trust to rout my fears. Oftentimes I get comfort when, faced with a fear, I cry silently to him, “Your will be done.”

I suspect that I will never achieve fearlessness this side of death, but my hope is that I am approaching it, ever so slowly, and will overcome it, even if it be at the other side of death on my continued journey.

Another thing that helps me is the thought that others are facing greater challenges than I, and that when I reach the other side of the fearful event, I wonder why I should have feared it at all.

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Okay, so the Unitarian thing didn’t work out.  It might have been the email I received, inviting me to the Heathen Hoopla, where I was to dress as the god, goddess or demon of my choice and bring something to beat on as I dance around the campfire — in the middle of summer!

When we went the first Sunday, we were asked by the greeters to not judge them too quickly on just one service.  That should have been a clue.  I gave them three services.  So when I suggested to my wife that this may not be right for us, she was greatly relieved because she felt the same.

I was trying to pinpoint what was so uncomfortable about my brief Unitarian Universalist experience. While we were encouraged (in their literature) to share what we believe, we found that no one there was sharing what they believed.  They seemed to almost bend over backward in their political correctness with regard to religious tolerance.

I know what I believe.  God, Jesus, Holy Spirit.  These were being replaced with Mother Earth, heathen hoopla and humanism.  While I applaud their emphasis on human kindness and expressions of love, the concentrated effort to avoid references to God, Jesus and Holy Spirit were uncomfortable.

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Not sure.  For a few weeks my wife and I have visited a local Unitarian Universalist (UU) church with the goal of establishing a communicative link with someone other than ourselves.  The reason we have selected a church atmosphere over any other venue is because of our faith.  We are followers of Christ, but our peculiar form of doctrine (or lack thereof) makes us not quite comfortable with the plethora of churches available — both denominational and non-denominational (which is really just a title; they mirror other denominations).

Our spiritual journey has been both exciting and somewhat lonely.  We were steeped in Christian fundamentalism, but after 35 or so years of our married walk together, we began to question some of our doctrine.  Like the validity or purpose of the Rapture and Tribulation, how the world will end (if it ends) and why is an eternal torture in a burning hell necessary?

We started taking Jesus at his word.  He prayed to God and called him his father, so we wondered how he could be God at the same time.  Sure, he said “my father and I are one,” but that could just mean that they were of the same mind, like “my father and I are just alike.”  So there goes the trinity.

And we struggled to find definite comments or teaching from the Son of God to support the main stream salvation/end times position that so many promote.  The only thing that we could come up with is that Jesus wants us to be nice (pardon the oversimplification).

We went from organized church to house church to no church.  We tried a couple of Methodist churches because they seemed rather innocuous.  But we felt that getting involved outside of worship service might put us in a position of revealing our beliefs, thereby making us and them uncomfortable.  Our next stop - the Unitarian Universalists.

We had done some research on the UUs and learned that they were tolerant of all religions and were big on encouraging human kindness.  So far, so good.  We have attended three “worship” services:  one on remembering UUs who have passed on; one on doing your own thing; and the last one could have been titled, “Is is possible that I’m a humanist?”

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