Grace out of time

Have you ever considered the very real possibility that we’re not in the right time zone? Maybe that’s not the right question. Have you ever considered the very real possibility that we’re not in the right era? Let me try to explain what I’m driving at.

Over the past several months I’ve been doing a tremendous amount of studying about the development of humans across history. The one thing that I’ve noticed is that certain perceptions of how the world operates tends to change within the population at critical points. The points aren’t the main issue as much as what the change ushers in in its wake.

Consider for example communication forms. For the longest span of time mankind’s primary mode of communication has been verbal. There were no writings, let alone reading of those writings, to collect and store. A man’s word was his bond. Somewhere along the line of time, someone decided to craft pictures and scrawls to denote what those pictures meant. Words were formed from those scribbles and a new class of people were created, those who knew what the scribbles meant, readers, and scribes, those who knew how to make the scribbles. (The reader and the scribe were not always the same person; one could write, but not read!) This invention, writing and reading, created a whole new industry in governance and trade. However, it never made a real, lasting impact to the vast population who couldn’t read or write.

Take a moment to think about how much time passed from this initial phase of writing until a printing press was created to permit multiple documents to be reproduced. Thousands of years went by before the general population could see the benefits of printing more than one copy of a document. Suddenly, printed communication began to have importance to all classes of people. Reading became a sign of a person’s place in the hierarchy of society, as did writing. New professions leapt onto the scene to capitalize on this trend in communicating.

Fast forward a few hundred years and a whole new method of communicating springs unto the world stage in the form of dots and dashes transcribed from the operation of mechanical devices attached by wires. Events could be recorded and sent across continents to people who never before had the ability to relate to others at such great distances. The distance of time had shrunk just as the distance between people had.

Today, 150 or so years since the Morse code was first instituted, we hold in our hands devices that give us instant access to people and events across the globe. We can speak to, and understand, people of a different language, see their reactions, and store pictures or video of those reactions for later viewing. Time has shrunk again to meet the requirements of a new form to an old medium of communication.

It would seem that the evolution of communication over thousands of years has been a natural event. But we all know that my simplified telling of the events cannot truly capture the drama which underlies all the brain power and technology mankind exerted to get us here today. The only obvious thing is that there was a progression, despite moments of regression, towards a goal, championed by few, embraced by all. No one would believe that the smart phone was in the works with the first drawings crafted in the recesses of some cave, would they? Of course not.

So, you might be wondering what all this has to do with grace. Have you ever considered that for all the wonders which grace has revealed to us, it was presented to us by Paul, someone who believed that the world was flat? Not only flat, but that the sun orbited around the earth? And he spread this idea of grace across the entire known world without even Morse code or a hundred copies of his letters?

Have you ever considered that the message of grace, the total unconditional acceptance of humanity by a singular deity, is a concept completely out of touch with a society where you were required to worship the ruler of the society you lived in? Have you ever thought what it must have been like to preach the inclusiveness of grace to a people who were slaves, people so below social standing that they resigned themselves to forever be beyond marginalized? Is it possible that grace then, just as today, was ahead of its time, waiting for time to catch up with it?

I have come to realize that grace is the one eternal affair which time cannot comprehend. It can quickly stick people in a box of certainty to old patterns of thought, while it also can blast people out of the same box into a life of apt wonder. It is the only concept, idea or belief that I know of which can create division by inclusion.

We live in an era where humanity across the board is rife with prejudice. Many are seeking a means of reconciling the differences these prejudices have created. However, no one is willing to offer the one means that will advance their desire simple because grace is not of this world; no one wants to take credit for employing a tactic they can’t call their own.

There are some people who believe that humanity is running out of time. I agree, however, not like you think. I believe humanity is running out of time while they run into grace. Grace is the Kingdom’s favorite means of communication. Eternal life never looked so good until grace revealed it for what it truly is.