Embracing Radical Acceptance Through Grace and Truth

In this Advent season, we are invited to embrace a posture of radical acceptance, rooted in the hope and promise that God will ultimately set things right. This acceptance is not merely a psychological exercise but a spiritual discipline grounded in the reality of God's grace and truth. As we reflect on the coming of Jesus, both in the past and in the future, we are reminded that our acceptance of life's circumstances, our emotions, and even our suffering is possible because we trust in God's redemptive work. [00:00:39]

Grace and truth are essential for living a life of radical acceptance. Grace offers love and mercy, while truth requires confronting reality honestly, without denial or justification. Our society's struggle with truth and justice reflects a deeper longing for a world where everyone receives what they deserve, yet justice without grace can be terrifying. Jesus exemplifies a non-anxious presence, maintaining his identity and mission amidst chaos, demonstrating the power of living in grace and truth. [00:02:14]

I cannot live with a posture of radical acceptance unless I'm honest about what it is that needs to be accepted, and one of the great difficulties is I push away from that. I try to deny reality; I don't want to look at it. And so when I failed back when I was a grad student, I forget all about that failure until many, many years later my advisor reminds me. [00:02:46]

Our nation right now is struggling with discovering what is the truth about ourselves. How do we ever know? And there have been a couple of very high-profile trials, one in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, and then another one, the trial of the killers of Ahmaud Arbery. As a country, as we try to look at will there ever be justice, there's all of the intricate details of an individual case. [00:04:03]

We believe that because God became flesh, that justice, truth, reality will one day prevail. But then one last sentence in this little passage: but when we do so, we rarely remember to count ourselves among their company. We look around and discover that before the end of the weekend, all assembles will get their justice earth, but we rarely remember to count ourselves. [00:07:31]

Jesus is full of truth, reality, justice will come, but justice alone can be a terrifying thing if it is not accompanied with grace, mercy, compassion, favor, goodwill. And Jesus is full of them, and it is because of it is because he is the one who is full of grace and truth that he lives in other utter freedom and is able to be present in love for people. [00:08:27]

When he's on a boat, there's a storm going on. Everybody in the boat is terrified; they're convinced they're all going to die. Remember what Jesus is doing? He's taking a nap. By the way, he brings what is classically called a non-anxious presence. Little acronym, nap, nap. It's the ability to take a nap when everybody's going crazy. [00:09:32]

His awareness of his identity and his vocation are extraordinary, and he doesn't detach. He goes back home; he obeys his parents. We see this over and over again in his life when he's with a leper where nobody else would touch this person, he reaches out at risk of great stigma to himself. When he's in the temple and everybody else would be likely to conform. [00:10:51]

So today, carry these two words: grace and truth. From one moment to the next, God help me to see the truth, what's going on around me, what's going on inside me, my anxiety, my anger, my fear, my resentment, my boredom, and then instead of beating myself up for that or rejecting myself or condemning other people, God let me live in grace. [00:11:45]

May the Jesus who came to Bethlehem, who is coming again, come to me today, come to you today full of grace and truth. May the one who was incarnated make you differentiated. I'll see you next time. [00:12:31]