Saving Grace

Grace gives us the chance to connect with our Saviour, but will we always recognise it when the opportunity presents itself? Jarrod Stackelroth explores this.

Silence. My heart was beating fast and the sweat cascaded down my face in sheets. This was it. Once I walked into that courtyard there would be no return, no second chance.

Justice would be served.

The executioner’s blade was sharp and I hoped it would be quick.

I knew I deserved it but it wasn’t fair. What does it feel like to cease, never again to be? I was led down a long, dusty corridor into an open courtyard.

An angry crowd was gathered before the raised platform. I could taste their hatred in the air as they mocked me. I don’t know why they were angry. Their turn would come, as it comes to us all. They were no better than me.

My senses were heightened. I could smell the executioner’s rank breath; garlic and the stench of stale food fl oated from his gaping maw of a mouth where rotting teeth clung like crooked willows on a mountain crag. He lifted his blade and time slowed. I could see every pit in the man’s face; hear every taunt of the crowd.

The sun seemed unbearably hot and mocked me from its throne on high. I looked down upon the scene, as if removed. I saw my huddled form with contempt. I scoff ed at what I had become.

What frail humanity, a pitiful shell of unrealised potential.

The crowd hushed as the blade went up. With my hands tied behind me and my head pushed down, in a last, unholy bow, all I could do was cry out.

“Help me.” The words broke forth, an inhuman, desperate plea from the bottom of my soul.

“Stop,” came a voice. The executioner stopped and looked around. The voice was neither loud nor powerful but somehow strangely compelling in its humanness.

The prince of this place, who had been wearing a gloating smile, stood up, his face transfi gured into a mask of hatred. Everyone looked around for the source of the voice.

There he was, Joshua the builder, from down my street. I had known him all my life and I thought ashamedly about how I had rejected his off ers of friendship and help. I had been too busy, uninterested in a lowly worker, too proud to take his hand even when I had needed it. Now he was the only person to say anything.

Why? I had never given him anything.

He was looking directly into my eyes, his deep brown eyes, quivering with the injustice of what was happening to me, and another expression on his face, which I recognised but could not name, an almost extrahuman emotion that went beyond anything I had experienced.

“Prince Lucas,” he said in a peaceful, quiet voice, “I have come for this man.” His eyes seemed to pierce my soul. I did not understand what was happening.

“Who are you to demand that?” spat the prince. “By all the laws of the universe this man deserves his fate.” “Let me make you a deal,” began Joshua. “I am the leader of the rebellion. Me for him.” The world seemed to hold its breath.

“You?” hissed Lucas. “Anytime. Seize him and make it quick.” For years, people had been waiting for the King to return, but to most it was a fairytale, a story meant for children. But here was the fl esh-and-blood leader of the rebellion. He had been so close to me all along and yet I never knew.

He was dragged onto the platform beside me.

“Let the worm go,” cried Lucas. “We’ve got a bigger prize.” My hands were unbound and I leapt away.

But before I went I leaned over and whispered, “Why?” “Greater love has no man than this, that he would lay down his life for his friends, and when the king returns, you can inherit all that was mine. For you are now with me.” Beep, beep, beep! I awoke with a start to the sound of my alarm. It was all a dream. And yet what a message my dream had given me.

The elation I felt to be freed from death, given a second life. Then I realised: I have been given life again, life I don’t deserve. What I did with that life was now the question.

The Bible says, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (James 2:26, NKJV). Does this mean that to accept the gift we are given we have to work for it? No way! But like a body that does not breathe is just an empty shell, if we are fi lled with faith and have accepted God’s grace then we have no choice but to ooze it.

In our actions, in our words, in our thoughts, grace should trumpet and our faith in God’s grace should be alive. Otherwise we are shell Christians and we are not living life more abundantly.

We walk around freed, yet with a noose around our necks instead of a T-shirt that says “Free and loving it!” Take the plunge.

Make the eff ort to connect with your Saviour. No matter what you’ve done or who you are, you are already saved if you accept it. And after accepting, share the joy you’ve found and live the life like someone who has been given it again. Not down and dreary but someone who has been saved from the very Valley of the Shadow of Death.

. . . The noise is a wall. People dance and sing all around me. The King has returned. I am standing with head high. Again my heart is beating fast, but this time with joy.