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Grace upon Grace
John 1:1-18
Agnes w. Norfleet
Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
My family enjoyed a vacation after Christmas in the Bine Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. On New Year’s Day we did what a lot ٠۴ people do in our lidie community and climbed Montreat’s Lookout Mountain. It’s a popular hike because it is not too long (Bven a young child can make the climb with a little help.), but after you navigate that last steep turn, you are rewarded with stunning views from the top. I have loved that mountain since ١ was a child and have climbed it in every season-in the spring when the ferns on the wooded floor begin to unfurl, in the summer when deep greens blanket the rolling hills in a serene peace, and in the fall when the hardwoods of those oldest mountains in the world are stunning in their colors. But through the years, I have discovered it is the winter hikes I like the best, because in winter you can see through the trees to a multi-layered beauty of those mountain contours. You see the skyline meet the treetops; and except for the oeeasional evergreen, you see the bare branches ٠۴ individual trees reaching toward the others like old friends. You see roof tops that are invisible in summer and the Blue Ridge Rarkway far across the valley. This New Year’s Day was so clear we could see all the way to Mount Mitchell, the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi River, and we could see other roads we have walked, winding their way up and across a distant ground to other far off peaks. From one vantage point we could see many layers of beauty and reality. Likewise, the gospel of John opens with a multi-layered vista. With echoes of Genesis, the opening verses tease our imaginations to look back to the beginning of the story of God and God’s people. In the beginning was the Word, and to look forward toward what is being revealed in the person ٠۴ Jesus Christ-light, power, glory, truth, grace upon grace. If any literata prologue opens a story by establishing the setting and giving the essential background details as it prepares the reader for the plot about to unfold, then John’s prologue is saying that all we know about God from our long history of salvation is culminating in the person ٠۴ Jesus Christ. Christ is God’s love overflowing, grace upon grace. The story is told about the Scottish poet and novelist, Robert Louis Stevenson, that when he was a little boy, more than a century ago, he was sitting one night by a window in his room, watching a lamplighter light the street lights below. Asked what he was doing, Stevenson said, “I am watching a man poke holes in the darkness.” With some ٠۴ the most e lu e n t language in all of scripture, John’s gospel opens by poking holes in the unfathomable mystery of God. One biblical scholar notes, “Within these verses there is a statement and restatement of the same message. I .ike the motion of a wave running up the seashore, each section carries the same message farther.”1 Another scholar likens the prologue to a musical overture that “offers bits ٠۴ the melodies or motifs to be more fully developed later…a theological framework for understanding Jesus in his relationship to God and us.”^ You can tell, no one metaphor is big enough to contain what is being revealed.
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We believe these layers of meaning that compose the beginning of John’s gospel are fragments of an early Christian hymn which sings its central message; in Jesus Christ, the great God of all creation took up residence in our midst. The God who people had long believed is for us, has chosen in Christ to be with us. God’s grace is embodied in the here and now, in our own human history. Now grace is one of those Christian catchwords that we all understand to a point, and yet, not one of us fully comprehends it. 1 looked up the word grace in the dictionary to see how it’s defined in a few words, and 1 found almost half a column of definition: beauty, good will, favor, a sense of what is right and proper, mercy, clemency, gratitude, thanks, attractive, a short prayer, granting a delay, a title of respect. The eleventh definition says, “In theology-the unmerited love and favor of God toward humankind.” Among all those uses, the theological definition is hardest to grasp, especially that “unmerited” part for folks like us who are so accustomed to earning what we make, working, achieving, and trying to get what we think we deserve. Gne of foe great Christian thinkers of foe last century, ?aul Tillich, described grace narratively and much more clearly than foe dictionary when he wrote,
Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life which we loved or from which we were estranged….It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when foe old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying, y،>،، are accepted. You are accepted, Tillich concluded. Simply accept thefact that you ، ٢٠ ؛accepted! When that happens to « ﺀwe experience grace.3
This gospel says that in Christ we have received not just grace, but grace upon grace! Our acceptance is based upon a long history of God’s favor to others, upon foe grace that was already present through foe God of creation, when foe light was separated from foe darkness and foe seas from foe dry land. Upon foe grace that was already present through foe God of Abraham and Sarah and their faithful and wayward descendents. upon foe grace that was there when foe prophets preached and foe psalmists lamented and rejoiced. Upon all of the grace that came before, grace came in foe flesh of Jesus, and it came closer than ever before. Grace upon grace. We will never fully understand it. All we can do is try, from time to time, to let foe beauty and foe mystery of it settle in. All we can do is let go of foe things to which we cling so tightly, so that we can be open to receive it overflowing from foe hands of God. Nelson M andela’s death befere Christm as rem inded foe world of a time when hope seemed particularly alive and foe future appeared brighter, when South Africa’s struggle for freedom began to dismantle foe legalized oppression of Apartheid. During that time, frill Moyers produced a documentary on foe hymn “Amazing Grace,” its history and significance. The film includes a scene from London’s Wembley Stadium, where various musical groups, mostly rock bands, had gathered together in celebration
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of the changes in South Africa, when the government-sanctioned walls of segregation finally came tumbling down. For twelve hours groups like Guns ‘n Roses played loudly over a huge crowd through banks of speakers, riling up fans. The crowd would yell for more curtain calls, and the rock groups would oblige. The concert promoters had chosen the highly acclaimed opera singer Jessye Norman as the closing act. The film cuts back and forth between scenes of the unruly crowd in foe stadium and Jessye Norman being interviewed about foe significance of “Amazing Grace.” Written by a slave trader who was converted from brutal cruelty to join foe fight against slavery, it was foe perfect song to end fois concert, and finally foe time comes for her to sing. A single circle of light follows Jessye Norman, this majestic African American woman wearing a flowing African caftan, as she strolls onstage. No backup band, no musical instruments, just Jessye. The crowd stirs, restless. Few seem to recognize foe opera diva. A voice yells for more Guns ،n Roses. Gthers take up foe cry. Chaos seems on foe brink. Then, alone, a cappella, Jessye Norman begins to sing very slowly: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like
And a remarkable thing happened in Wembley Stadium that night. Seventy thousand raucous fans fell silent before her aria of grace. By foe time Norman reached the second verse, “Twas grace thattaughtmyhearttofearandgracemyfearsrelieved…,” she had foe crowd in her hands. By foe time she reached foe third verse, “Tis grace that brought me safe thusfar, ﻣﺤﺲgrace /ﻣﺤﻪﺀ ،’/ ١٧ me home,” several thousand fans were singing, digging back into nearly lost memories for words they heard long ago. Jessye Norman later confessed she had no idea what power had descended on Wembley Stadium that nightri But I think we know. The world hungers and thirsts for grace, the unmerited love and favor of God, and when we recognize it, the world falls silent before it. ؟Many of us reach foe end of one year and foe beginning of another and look back with some fondness and a little sorrow. There are a lot of things we wish we had done or not done, many things for which we are profoundly grateful, and things we regret we had to come up against. We look ahead, we make our resolutions, and we pray that fois ٢٠that will change – in our lives, in foe world ؛and we hope for foe best. But apart from anything of our own doing ٢٠design, apart from anything we can achieve, apart from any response we make, we are^ach of us-like a little child being baptized. We cannot understand God,s grace fitlly, anymore than foe dictionary اﻟﻪﺀadequately define it. But we can look back, and we can look forward and trust it comes as pure gift: in Jesus Christ we have received grace upon grace. In him, as in no other, we are accepted, loved, forgiven, protected, and companioned by God. Grace upon grace indeed.
Notes 1 Francis ]. Moloney, S.D.B., Theاس /م/ ﺀرﺑﻤﻤﺚﺀ ,Sacra Pagina Series, vol. 4 (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgieal Press, 1998), 2. 2 Robert Redmon’s “Theological Persjx؛ctive,” Feasting o n ،/ ?،؛Word, Year c, .١٠٧1, edited by David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor (Louisville: Westminster John Knox 2009), 140. 3 Paul Tillieh, “You Are Aceepted.” The ﺀاا’اسofFoundation (0ﻫﺴﺎ :^SCM Press, 1949), 162. 4 Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About .’م®’،׳ ( ٢٠Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997), 281. 5 Yancey, 282.
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