and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Romans 3:24 (NIV)
The Same Grace for Him
His gear is back on the hook. One of the guys said it in the equipment bay on a Sunday morning, not loudly, and every man in there knew whose hook and what it meant. He left the department in a way people around here bring up, and the chief put his name back on the callout list without putting it to the crew.
All are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Paul puts everybody in the same trouble, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and he brings everybody out of it the same way.
Nobody asked him for anything. The redemption came by Christ Jesus, Paul says, and it reaches everyone who believes the same way.
This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, Paul says, and there’s none between one man on a crew and the next. The crew would want a waiting period written in, or a stretch of him proving himself. Paul puts the man whose gear is back on the hook under the same grace as the man who has never missed a call.
I can get as far as saying he is forgiven. I stop where it turns out he’s forgiven in the same grace I am, and I’ve never once got past that on the first try.
Boasting is excluded, and what excluded it is a law that requires faith rather than works. In the equipment bay that takes a line out of every man’s mouth, the one about his own record, the mornings he came in before anyone called him. Paul says God justifies those who have faith in Jesus, and the chief has put his name back on the list. Whether he can be trusted on a ladder in the dark is another question, and the crew will work that out the slow way, with him standing right there while they do. His wife has been ordering for both of them at the diner after church for nineteen years, because he takes too long with a menu, and she did it again last Sunday with the whole thing sitting over the table.
His gear hangs at shoulder height where it hung before, waiting on a call that has not come in yet. When it comes, they go out together.
A Prayer to Remember
There’s a name I’ve been keeping off your list, God, and I have my reasons, and you know every one of them. I’m not asking you to change my mind about him this morning. Let me say his name to you once, without adding what he did to the end of it. You had him on the list before I got here.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
