Buffalo Grace

Saturday, January 24

It was a very early morning today. A group of six took advantage of our day off to tour South Dakota. We headed to Crazy Horse, drove by Mt Rushmore, and ate a huge lunch in Rapid City. On the way to Crazy Horse we were surrounded by a herd of buffalo. One bull was next to my window and he was taller than the van. The thought, "We're goners." did cross my mind as they bowed heads and trotted toward the van. Turns out they just wanted to lick the van and passed on by. Unfortunately I have no pictures.

There is a snowstorm outside so we have canceled our trip to an evening pow wow. It's cold and windy today. Most of us are downright exhausted and plan to watch the movie National Treasure 2. It seemed fitting since we just visited the Black Hills.

Have you ever seen a buffalo up close? They truly are majestic animals.
I remembered an image I saw yesterday of the destruction and hunting of buffalo in the 1800s. I thought about the sin against these animals that was committed in the past.

Martin Luther posed a theology that we are both saint and sinner simultaneously. That I sin and am inclined to self and not God AND that I am created in the image of God. I love the comments Sarcastic Lutheran makes in her blog about this topic.

Sometimes friends criticize how Christianity is like the proverbial gumball machine (see sarcastic lutheran blog). You confess and you are forgiven. So what's the cost, what's the big deal? Truth is that's just "cheap grace." Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.... Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. (Cost of Discipleship by Bonhoffer)

I don't want cheap grace for the reckless waste of sins against humanity and yes, even the buffalo. Give me true grace. May I come to God with knees bent and a true sense of needing that forgiveness. Let it be with cost and meaning. Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. (Cost of Discipleship by Bonhoffer)

Today, I was thankful for some Buffalo Grace.