Glimpses of Grace

We are called and empowered to proclaim the truth of God. Because Jesus is in us, we can bring light to the places we go. Isaiah 43 states:
10 "You are My witnesses," says the Lord, "And My servant whom I have chosen, That you may know and believe Me, And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me.
11 I, even I, am the Lord, And besides Me there is no savior.

We are witnesses of what Christ has done for us through the cross and the change that has made in our lives, and as Jesus taught, out of the abundance of what is in our hearts, we speak. We can certainly make faith statements, but we also must realize we have to back them up by the way we live, and our behavior testifies to the presence of Christ within us. Because we have been shown grace, we can display that grace by allowing Him to move through us.

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Each of us, if we are saved, are given a testimony, a story to share about God's grace in our lives. We can seek to be faithful to share it through words and actions. Philippians 2 states:
(13) for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
14 Do all things without complaining and disputing,
15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,
16 holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.

I am not a viewer of the enduring late-night show, Saturday Night Live.  It seems the only time you hear about it these days is when some controversy has been generated and it is reported on in the media. So, it's still there, still going, and stars who have been associated with it are continuing to be involved in entertainment projects.

So, prior to his death, I had never heard of Norm MacDonald; and what was interesting was that tributes were showing up in the tweets of some that I follow on Twitter, even among professing Christians.  So, when CBN.com did an article on MacDonald, I thought it would be worth checking out - why was this guy, an SNL alum and comedy writer, getting props from believers? 

Well, upfront, the article says that the 61-year-old, who passed away from cancer, claimed to be a Christian.  And, furthermore, as the article develops, it says:

Macdonald made headlines a few years ago when he drew the ire of leftists on social media for tweeting about Christianity. In a tweet he later deleted, Macdonald wrote, “The Enlightenment turned us away from truth and toward a darkling weakening horizon, sad and gray to see. The afterglow of Christianity is near gone now, and a Stygian silence lurks in wait.”

The writer of the CBN piece, Tre Goins-Phillips, stated:

The comedian’s tweet, posted in 2018, was a reference to the 18th-century cultural shift away from the imitation and depiction of the sacred to a focus on self-indulgence and decadence. From then, people began favoring secular reasoning and science above spirituality.

There was also the incident in 2015, as a judge on the NBC show, Last Comic Standing. The article relates:

...Macdonald schooled a contestant for mocking Christianity during his routine.

Fellow judge Roseanne Barr told comedian Harrison Greenbaum his jokes about the Bible were “brave,” an assertion with which Macdonald staunchly disagreed.

“I don’t think the Bible jokes are brave at all,” he said at the time. “If you think you’re gonna take on an entire religion, you should maybe know what you’re talking about.”

Goins-Phillips also said:

Macdonald later told The Hollywood Reporter he didn’t care for Greenbaum’s “smugness” and didn’t think it was courageous to mock Christianity in this day and age. Instead, he argued, it would be “brave” to say, “Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior.”

Two years before that, while talking with the late interviewer Larry King, Macdonald described himself as a Christian, quipping that he knew it wasn’t “a stylish thing to say.”

But, he later told King that he was "on a spiritual journey," and perhaps felt more comfortable with Judaism.  

In 2017, the comedian tweeted out on Reformation Day, October 31: "Scripture. Faith. Grace. Christ, Glory of God. Smart man says nothing is a miracle. I say everything is.”

Further reading certainly makes it hard to pin down where MacDonald really came down regarding the practice of his faith - he was said to struggle with gambling, but a recent New York Times piece stated that he was opposed to abortion.  There are certainly signs that his overall worldview may have contained a Christian element.  I think you could make the case that God was trying to get his attention, as all of us, and it seems clear that Norm MacDonald had responded, to some degree.

In this man's guarded life, you see glimpses of grace, and none of us are capable or qualified to determine the state of his soul, nor should we even try.  But, for us, we can evaluate whether or not those glimpses of grace can be readily apparent - when people look at us, do they see the expression of God's love and the evidence of His salvation?  

We can also determine the extent to which the faith we say we believe governs our worldview and our approach to the decisions we make. From our personal walk with God flows the life of Christ, the presence of the One who has redeemed us, who calls us into fellowship with Himself, and touches the lives of those with whom we interact.