The Crinkled Reminder of Grace
God did something in Blaise Pascal November 23, 1654 that changed him forever. Pascal was a French philosopher, inventor, and scientist, who famously recorded his encounter with God on a piece of paper that he secretly sewed into his coat so that he could take it everywhere he went as a reminder. This paper was discovered after he died: "Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars... joy, joy, joy, tears of joy..."
One Lutheran theologian talks about sanctification is the “art of getting used to our justification” - the lifelong process of adjusting our thinking and perspectives to align with our righteous standing with God. Instead of being fussed at from the pulpit for not making more progress in the Christian life, wouldn’t it be great if Sunday’s preacher simply reminded us that, for those who receive him, they already are righteous with the righteousness of Christ himself imputed to unworthy sinners - “now get used to it.” And what if this message was the quiet song in our ears all day long? I imagine that Pascal was greatly blessed every time he put his hand into his coat pocket to hear a crinkling noise, the reminder of his right standing with God. To know of God’s righteousness is to gradually be transformed by his love.
Sanctification is not moving beyond grace, but more into it. It is not as if grace gets us over the salvation-line and then we change our focus to working the program for our moral improvement - God's part is salvation and our part is sanctification. No! Moral improvement and obedience is the fruit of greater and greater awareness and trust in God's unconditional love. We don't acquire more and more righteousness by serious devotion to the devotions, because there is no more righteousness to be had than God's very own righteousness imputed to unworthy sinners like us. Pascal was saved on this day in 1654 and he took his salvation with him everywhere he went.
“Like Socrates and Jesus, Pascal does not leave us at rest, because he knows that the restless heart is the second best thing in life, for it is the road to the Best Thing.”
“There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.”
“The one who thinks he is healthy is going to be happy to be offered a free heart transplant. Pascal now has the unenviable task of convincing us of this Bad news so that we will be open to the Good News.”
“How vain painting is, exciting admiration by its resemblance to things of which we do not admire the originals!”