Grace Has Appeared

Something appeared. Not like a ghost in the night. More like the sun breaking over the sea after a long dark voyage. Paul has a word for it. Grace. And it appeared for everyone.

Crete is a long, mountainous island in the Mediterranean Sea, south of Greece. Paul had left his co-worker Titus there with a hard job: to appoint good leaders in each town and to help brand-new Christians learn how to live. It was not easy. Paul even quotes one of the Cretans' own poets, who had said that Cretans were always liars. Some troublemakers were upsetting whole households. So Paul writes Titus a letter full of practical advice for old and young, for families and workers. But underneath every instruction, he puts a foundation. And the foundation is Christmas.

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Paul writes. Grace is God's undeserved kindness, love we could never earn. And it appeared. It showed up in our world, in a person, in Jesus, born in Bethlehem. And it came for all people, slaves and masters, Cretans and Jews, old and young. That grace, Paul says, also teaches us. It trains us, like a good teacher trains a student, to say no to what is wrong and to live sensibly, rightly and godly in this present world.

And it teaches us to wait with hope. Paul says we are looking for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. So there are two appearings. Grace appeared once, at the first Christmas. And Jesus will appear again, in glory, at the end. Christians live in between, like people who have seen the dawn and are waiting for full day. Why did he come? Paul tells Titus: he gave himself for us, to set us free from all wrongdoing, and to make us his own people, eager to do good.

A little later in the letter, Paul says it again. He remembers what they were all like before, himself included: foolish, disobedient, full of envy and spite. But after that, he writes, the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. We did not earn it. We could not. God washed us clean and made us new by his Holy Spirit, poured out richly through Jesus Christ. So that, made right with God by his grace, we become heirs, with the hope of eternal life.

Paul's line about Cretans being always liars was not his own invention. He says it came from one of their own prophets. The early Christian writer Clement of Alexandria, around the year 200, said the line came from Epimenides, a famous Cretan wise man. Paul was quoting a local proverb, the way a preacher today might quote a well-known saying.

Grace Has Appeared. You'll find it in Titus chapter two, verses eleven to fourteen, and chapter three, verses four to seven. In many churches these words are read at Christmas, because they tell what appeared that night in Bethlehem: the kindness and love of God. So here is a question to carry with you. Grace was a gift you could not earn. How might that change the way you treat people who have not earned your kindness?