Farewell to Grace

Joan of Arcadia has been cancelled, so farewell to grace. Not the character Grace, though she was certainly both intriguing and amusing, but rather good-bye to a television show that always touched me by portraying a life of grace. Contrary to what many people think, Joan was not another 7th Heaven-type sit-com.

Some sample plots lines from Joan:
-A boyfriend has sex with a girl he wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for his girlfriend
-One of your best friends is stabbed to death during a blown drug deal
-A man’s boss tries to separate him from his wife and possibly arranges to have someone killed as a favour to him
-A twenty-something kid tries to deal with the fact that he put his best friend in a wheelchair by suing Joan’s family
-A teenage girl just tries to do what God wants without understanding how everything will turn out

Okay, so that last one describes every episode of Joan, but that is my point. My life is not the O.C. where people from dysfunctional families hop from one bed to another while drunk and high. Joan is poignant because a life touched by grace is poignant. It is the grace of God that gives us strength to stand in this world, not because it shields us from life’s problems but because it makes us understand that God is greater. Unlike every other cheesy religious show, Joan had something to say about God, His ability to make good come out of all things, His ability to speak through His people, often the hopeless, the downtrodden and the outcasts.

Joan never learns about God through some lecture by a self-righteous preacher, but rather learns that when true tragedy strikes and we as human beings are helpless, then are we closest to God, His love, and because of that love, His grace.

“I am He who comforts you. Who are you to be afraid?” - Hymn I don’t remember the name of, I think it was based on Isaiah.