The Beauty of Grace

Just got back from my oldest son Joel's new blog at PoetsandPriests.com and picked up a piece of Bono lyric that was lying in his sidebar:

What once was hurt
What once was friction
What left a mark
No longer stings
Because Grace makes beauty
Out of ugly things...
Grace finds beauty in everything.

That very elegant piece of verse reminds the listener that God's grace is more than just an idea or a doctrine. Into a world in which every molecule and miniscule is stained and marked by the ugliness and hurt of sin, God's grace comes to cleanse, heal, soothe, and most of all, to beautify and dignify. It comes not to politely excuse the sin, but to divinely reveal the beauty in every person and thing. Bono's lyric immediately brought to my mind Psalm 149:4 (NASB):

For the LORD takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.

The psalmist has called the congregation to praise and exalt God in verses 1-3, and now he tells them why--because God is gracious. Here's a TOG paraphrase of this verse: For the Lord gives grace to his people; He honors the humbled ones with his deliverance. For God to "take pleasure" in us means literally that he "favors" us. That is very close to the NT idea of grace as unmerited favor. He is gracious. And his favor will "adorn" us--we are made beautiful by his adorning grace resting upon us. "God makes beauty out of ugly things." Interestingly, the Hebrew term for "salvation" is "yeshua," the Hebraic name of our Lord, Jesus. Though we are humbled and afflicted by this sinful world, God favors us and adorns us as his people with salvation, with Yeshua. Jesus. That's the real beauty of grace.