Some years ago, I was at an elementary school Awards Day. It was the end of Buddy’s third grade year and it was Third Grade Awards Day. If you have been to something like this, then you know what they are all about. All the third-graders were seated on one side of the gym, and all of the camera-laden parents were on the other side. The teachers and the principal were up on the stage and one by one each teacher would come to the microphone and give awards to her students. Each third-grade class would come up when it was their turn and the children would line up at the side of the stage. Then their teacher would call each student by name and read off the awards as he or she came up to receive them. It was quite an exciting affair. If you could measure the importance of an event by the number of video cameras involved, no presidential news conference could hold a candle to Awards Day.

And no one left without an award, so there were awards of all kinds. There were awards for the kids who had made the Honor Roll. There were awards for the kids who had not missed any days of school that year. (There was a girl in Buddy’s class who, amazingly enough, had not missed a day of school since Kindergarten. That’s four full years! Pretty Amazing.) There were awards for the kids who had read the most books, and for the kids who had improved the most, and for the kids who had simply worked hard and tried their best. There was the Science Award and the Math Award and the Art Award. And, of course, there was the PE Award, given to the kids who had excelled in athletics.

There were a couple of classes ahead of Buddy’s, and to be honest, I wasn’t really paying all that much attention to them. I was there for Buddy. But I noticed that one of the teachers called the name of a cute little girl who came forward only with the help of a walker. Something was wrong with her legs. Some disease or birth defect had left her crippled. And so she stood there, leaning on her walker, as her teacher read off the list of awards that she was to receive. She got several awards. I don’t remember what they were until I heard her teacher say, “And finally, she receives the PE Award for excellence in athletics.” Here was this little disabled girl, legs seemingly meaningless appendages, receiving the PE Award! And you could not have contained the smile on her face! I looked at this happy little disbled girl, fidgeting with her walker, just like the other children were fidgeting with their papers or their pants, and I thought, “What a phenomenal picture of the gospel.”

You see, awards are supposed to go to those who deserve them. If you do the best in math, you get the Math Award. If you draw the best pictures, you get the Art Award. And nobody is surprised. They deserve them. They have great ability in their particular area. They have worked hard, and there’s nothing wrong with getting rewarded for working hard and doing your best and achieving your goal.

But disabled children are not supposed to get the PE Award. That is supposed to go to the child who can run the fastest and jump the highest. And that’s why this was such a remarkable picture of the gospel. A disabled girl will never be able to excel in athletics. She will never be able to run as fast or jump as high as her classmates. But she gets the PE Award, and that’s the gospel. That’s grace. And that’s us! We are disabled children, who can’t run or climb or jump, and God gives us the PE Award! Even though we can’t move our legs, God looks down at us and a big smile breaks across his face. He roars with laughter, because he cannot contain the delight that he feels in us. You see, his delight is not based in who we are and what we are able to do. It is based in who he is, his unconditional, undeserved, sovereign love. He thinks, “Ah, here’s one who really needs me.” He delights in being needed, and we delight in his love and his help and his care. We can offer him nothing. We cannot run errands for him or do chores for him. We are crippled, but we get the PE Award. We get what we do not deserve. And that’s the gospel.

Now what if this had happened? What if that cute little disabled girl had refused the award? What if she had said, “Thanks, but no thanks. I only want to receive what I have earned.” Would she have smiled as big as she did? Would she have been as happy? I don’t think so. The question for us is this. Why are we not more happy? Why don’t we feel the impact of God’s love? Why don’t we feel the incredible weight of God’s grace? It is because we keep trying to earn it. It is not astonishing for the fastest kids in the class to receive the PE Award. There’s nothing amazing about that. They deserve it, they expect to get it, and everyone in the room expects them to get it. They have already proven themselves. You see, there’s nothing about justice that takes your breath away. But grace is different story. Grace will take your breath away, just like it did to me as I sat in the Friendship Elementary School gym and wiped tears from my eyes when the girl with the walker got the PE Award.

Why doesn’t the gospel take our breath away? Too often, it is because we think that we’ve earned the award. We think we deserve God’s love and forgiveness and his care and compassion. You see, grace is not amazing when it feels deserved. But when you admit your inabilities, it will take your breath away.