the harsh and the holy...part II

My mental framework lately has been that God is a consuming fire, and we, the wicks. This is Annie Dillard but also Jeremiah theology, who cried, “His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot” (Jeremiah 20:9). This is a truth, but it is lacking its complement. It is not a holistic perspective. Extremes like this need to be tempered, or I will only touch half the vision.

Here is what i mean: I need to temper my fire with grace, and salt my grace with fear. God is both mercy and judgment. He is both Lion and Lamb. He is gloriously both and one.

There is a violent side of grace just as there is a tender side of grace. And the latter has lately been my musing. Grace that nurtures, grace that heals, grace that comes in thin whispers rather than branches wrapped in flame.

My pastor spoke on this side of grace on Palm Sunday. Coats and palm branches are soft, he said. The triumphal entry of Christ is God's Light Touch to the World, He comes gentle. Jesus with children on His knee, Jesus touching the eyes of men born blind.
Clearly there is a dichotomy that needs to be reconciled. How can God be a pillar of fire and also a babe? How can His voice shake the earth and strip the trees at one time, and at another speak in a trembling whisper? i have a suspicion God is glorified in being BOTH. He is magnified when two seemingly opposite entities collide in Who He Is and unite in a divine harmony. The contrast plays off each other, sharpening the other into brilliance.

So i am thinking perhaps grace, like some other gifts of God, comes in seasons. Christmas shows us the tenderness of God, and Easter shows us the wrath. Just as Christ arrived in the tender newness of life in one season, and departed in raw violence in the next, perhaps grace is lavished on us through both the soft and the fierce. Even the earth and its turnings speak to the glory of God.

i believe God is gloriously both. He smashes tables and holds children. He is Judge of the Earth, Pillar of Fire, Lion of Judah; and He is Healer, Babe, and Lamb. He is soft AND savage--"the wrath of the Lamb" (Revelation 6:16). And we worship Him because He knows how to meet us where we are. He knows when we need to be wrestled and when we need to just rest in His lap.